KindlED
The KindlED Podcast explores the science of nurturing children's potential and creating empowering learning environments. Powered by Prenda, each episode offers actionable insights to help you ignite your child's love of learning. We'll dive into evidence-based tools and techniques that kindle curiosity, motivation, and well-being in young learners. Do you have a question, topic, or story you'd like to share with us? Get in touch at podcast@prenda.com.
KindlED
Episode 42: Building Healthy Brains. A Conversation with Ned Johnson.
This week, Kaity and Adriane chatted with Ned Johnson, co-author of "The Self-Driven Child" and "What Do You Say?" about healthy brain development.
Episode 42 explores:
🔥 the impact of school start times on brain development
🔥 fostering genuine connections that inspire our youth to thrive in and out of the classroom
🔥 the need for an ideal learning environment
🔥 technology's double-edged sword in modern childhood
🔥 the power of intrinsic motivation
🔥 how happiness and engagement are crucial for effective learning
🔥 and so much more!
Tune in for a conversation that will equip you with the strategies you need to nurture a generation capable of facing anything with a self-driven spirit.
👤 ABOUT THE GUEST 👤
Ned Johnson is the founder of PrepMatters, an educational company that helps students find success in high school and get into and through college. A professional “tutor geek" since 1993, Ned has spent more than 50,000 one-on-one hours helping students conquer an alphabet of standardized tests, learn to manage their anxiety and develop their motivation to succeed.
With Dr. William Stixrud, Ned co-authored The Self-Driven Child: The Science and Sense of Giving Your Kids More Control Over Their Lives and What Do You Say? How To Talk With Kids To Build Motivation, Stress Tolerance, and a Happy Home. He is the host of The Self-Driven Child podcast, and his work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, BBC, and many others.
Resources mentioned:
- Katey McPherson
- Lisa Lewis - The Sleep Deprived Teen
- Peter Gray
- Lenore Skenazy
- Learned Helplessness at Fifty: Insights from Neuroscience
Got a story to share or question you want us to answer? Send us a message!
About the podcast:
The KindlED Podcast explores the science of nurturing children's potential and creating empowering learning environments.
Powered by Prenda Microschools, each episode offers actionable insights to help you ignite your child's love of learning. We'll dive into evidence-based tools and techniques that kindle young learners' curiosity, motivation, and well-being.
Got a burning question?
We're all ears! If you have a question or topic you'd love our hosts to tackle, please send it to podcast@prenda.com. Let's dive into the conversation together!
Important links:
• Connect with us on social
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• Get our free literacy curriculum
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So, as parents, we have this tendency, when we see our kids struggle, to want to jump in and save them. I get it. I'm a dad, I've got two kids. You're wired to do this, but we really want to do everything we can not to save kids or solve things for them that they can solve for themselves. We offer a lot of help. We offer a lot of support. We want them to have the sense that they have navigated, that they have solved these things for themselves.
Speaker 2:Hi and welcome to the Kindled podcast where we dig into the art and science behind kindling the motivation, curiosity and mental wellbeing of the young humans in our lives.
Speaker 3:Together, we'll discover practical tools and strategies you can use to help kids unlock their full potential and become the strongest version of their future selves. Welcome to the Kindle Podcast. My name is Adrienne Thompson and I'm here with the lovely Katie Broadman. Hey, katie, what are we talking about?
Speaker 2:today. Oh my gosh, today's going to be amazing. We're talking to Ned Johnson and he is the co-author of the Self-Driven Child and a follow-up book that they wrote called what Do you Say? So super excited about that. But can I tell you something else that I'm excited about? Yes, go for it. So this morning my seven-year-old came in and she said something like yes, go for it. So this morning my seven-year-old came in and she said something like so Maggie colored all over my bed. Maggie's our four-year-old. So I'm like, okay, we'll deal with it later. I was imagining just like some pencil, you know somewhere. And then she's like no, it's a lot Like you should come see. And so then I was like, okay, I'll come see. She's literally colored with crayon the entire side of her bed, her white, like nice her bed.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like on the wood, on oh, I was thinking like the covers and I was like, well, crayon would not go on the covers. Oh, that's fun and it's crayon, so yeah. So I mean, I know magic eraser is gonna be fine.
Speaker 2:I'm not stressed about it. But, um, I um, I was like are you sure it was Maggie? Cause sometimes the seven-year-old likes to do crazy things like that and just be like, oh yeah, four-year-old did it. Um, but she was like no, it was Maggie. I asked her and she said I'm sorry, I just couldn't help it. And I was like yes, she's so right, she doesn't have a prefrontal cortex like development of, like inhibition. And I just was so happy to have all of this information in my brain and like kind of like programming my parenting, because in the past I would have been like how could you do that? That's so obviously not okay, like you know, like yeah, but when you realize that they get a little wild hair idea and they literally just can't make themselves not do it, so, um, it was so Especially at four, Right, right, right.
Speaker 3:Her brain is so underdeveloped and I think about my 14 year old, though still I have to remember these same things because he, we were supposed to be going somewhere and then, all of a sudden, I asked everyone in the house where did he go? And he just went for a bike ride. And he came back. I said, Bob, we're going to be so late. And I said, what? What were you thinking? You knew we were leaving. He's like I wasn't thinking. My brain just told me to go ride a bike, Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cool Anyways. So what did you do after, did you? I haven't, I haven't even dealt with it yet. I just it was. We were like getting ready for school. So I knew also that if I like bring this up right now, we're going to have a 20 minute meltdown over like the like sadness of mom being disappointed in her and things like that. So I was just like we will just give her a little lesson in how to use a magic eraser later and she will clean that up and that will help her brain see the tie between her actions and some consequences in a gentle way. That will not be shame inducing and I will help her and it will be a good little connection time for us, I think later this afternoon.
Speaker 3:So yeah, it's just like Ned's book that we're going to talk about. What do you say? I am three quarters of the way through. I'm going to finish it after an interview with him.
Speaker 3:It is so good it is all the books that I refer to people in one. So I'm working with clients right now for parent coaching and I texted her yesterday. I said, okay, stop reading any of the books that I have already given to you, Just read what do you say? Because this is encompassing everything that you're going through with your 14 year old right now. So, yeah, so she's going to listen to it this week while she's traveling. So, anyways, let's tell you a little bit about Ned.
Speaker 3:So Ned Johnson is the founder of Prep Matters, an educational company that helps students find success in high school and get into and through college. A professional tutor geek since 1993, Ned has spent more than 50,000 one-on-one hours helping students conquer an alphabet of standardized tests, learn to manage their anxiety and develop their own motivation to succeed. With Dr William Stixrud, Ned co-authored the Self-Driven Child, the Science and Sense of Giving your Kids More Control Over their Lives, and the book that I just referenced, what Do you Say? How to Talk with Kids to Build Motivation, Stress, Tolerance and a Happy Home. He is the host of the Self-Driven Child podcast and his work has been featured on the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, NPR, BBC and many others. Okay, let's talk to Ned. Sounds great, let's do it. Hi, Ned, Welcome to the Kindle podcast. So we would love to just kick off and tell us a little bit about who you are and give us you know a little background of your work in education and what is your big why in the world.
Speaker 1:So I'm a I may be an airsets educator. We're allowed to use those SOT words. I I've spent up of 30 years now helping students prepare for and do battle with alphabet of standardized tests, and through that work I relatively quickly figured out that it's more than just math and reading, but a whole bunch of other things that are significant. To try to be clever, it's not just what we put in kids brains, but paying attention to what significance, so that on the day of the test they don't lose their minds, because a lot of hard effort kind of goes right out the window that way.
Speaker 1:So as a test prep guy, I'm always trying to figure out what does this kid need to be more motivated in ways that are healthy and sustainable? Or what does this kid need to feel less stressed than he or she currently does? You know, sort of right down the line of the Yerkes-Dodson curve. So we've got that optimal arousal and kids are fun, right, and for me I get to do this work one-on-one, which is just delightful, because then my only interest is the kid who's right in front of me and it also makes it a little bit easier to pay attention to. Now I didn't teach that that well, and then we tried that again, but also really trying to understand the kid for context, you know kind of everything about her and so it's all of the test prep is the way that I, you know, can pay my mortgage. But it's all the ancillary things that are really fun and formative and certainly that inform the work that Bill and I have done and the books that we've written together.
Speaker 3:I feel like that's probably not normal, though, because you say test prep, and I'm not thinking about all these other things that you're thinking about. Usually, it's just okay, a kid comes in, we're going to teach them strategies on how to take a test. So what you're doing, I feel like, is so much more. And then, how did you get connected with Bill?
Speaker 1:I'm super curious about that. So, bill, so my writing partner is a clinical neuropsychologist and he's sort of the guy to go to here in DC, particularly if you've got a kid who's quite complicated, and we had one. We had mutual clients for a while where they might've had testing done with Bill and that that'd be shared with me. When I started doing test prep and we had some mutual friends who also put us together, we were lecturing together about motivation and discovered that we really liked the way that one another thought, and we were a few, probably a couple of years into our friendship, and Bill said it seems to me like it might be worth writing down some of the things that we think matter. He said does it seem to you like there's an organizing principle about what we share? He said does it seem to you like there's an organizing principle about what we share? And I said well, it feels to me like everything that you and I are sharing with kids is intended to increase the sense of control that they feel about their own lives. So both from a motivational perspective and from the stress perspective, and so that's, and that was sort of the literally just sitting here in this office that I am in. That's kind of where we got the launch of the Self-Driven Child as a book and as a body of work. It's great because Bill's 74, now I'm 53. And he's been lecturing on the effects of stress on developing brains for decades.
Speaker 1:I had the opportunity to have slightly deeper relationships with kids because I work with them, you know, week after week, from oftentimes for many months, and so there was a period in my life where, probably at least two years straight, I found myself saying things like well, my friend Bill says, my friend Bill says, my friend Bill says, and so I took all the, all the research and knowledge that he had and then tried to figure out how do I say this, or spin this in a way so that a teenager goes, oh right, as opposed to you know. And so it was kind of like trying to workshop something and and take his bills. I mean so doggone wise, but how do I phrase it in a way that a, that a slightly skeptical teenager, goes, oh, I hadn't thought about that. So it's been a fun collaboration.
Speaker 3:That's amazing. Were you familiar with self-determination theory before the work or did you stumble upon that? And what is self-determination theory for people that don't know what that is?
Speaker 1:I actually had a friend who was a knowledge management architect for Lockheed Martin, like how do I get 35 engineers to pay attention to what I'm saying? And we were nerding around for a few years on just this topic motivation. And then it got deeper when I worked with Bill Self-determination theory, for people who don't know it yet, is a model of intrinsic motivation. So when oftentimes parents or teachers or any of us, when we think about you know, training our dog, we think about, often think about extrinsic motivators of a threat or a bribe, right Carrots and sticks. Intrinsic motivation is the science behind how do we help kids want to not to work hard, but want to work hard for anything that matters to them. And it holds that there are three psychological needs that need to be met, really mostly in equal measure a sense of competency, a sense of relatedness or connection and a sense of autonomy.
Speaker 1:And when we actually, bill, had become friends a little bit with Edward Deasy, one of the people who put this together, and we spoke with him, we said it's our hunch that of the three of these, that it's really autonomy that matters most. I said, do we have that right? And he said absolutely In part, because the longer the kids are in school, the less autonomy they have. I mean, kindergartners tend to have more autonomy than do seniors in high school, so it's a really elegant model. If you look at a kid who is not motivated, to try to figure out why do they not feel can, they don't care about this thing? Do they feel incompetent, in which case they feel stressed and they avoid it? Or do they feel like someone is trying to control them, in which case they fight tooth and nail even things that might be in their own best interest? So I really like it as a kind of a diagnostic tool.
Speaker 2:I love that. Okay, so there's a quote from the Self-Driven Child that says agency may be the most important factor in human happiness and well-being. So I'd love for you to just kind of like riff on that and I'd love if you could bring in some stories of like actual kids that you've worked with, where you've really seen them have these aha moments of like. Oh, I might. There might be a hopeful path towards a happy, meaningful, successful life here that maybe I haven't thought of before.
Speaker 1:So agency is a little slightly broader concept than you know. Autonomy is a sense of control that it's my choice. Agency really adds into that the piece of competency. Right? Both. I get to run my own life and I'm able to run my own life. And when you lack a sense of agency, when you don't feel like you can run your own life, it's understandable that people would want to stay at home under the covers and just Uber eat a food for the rest of their lives, right? What we're trying to do, of course, is help kids both feel competent to, and want to, go out in the real world and build and live fully the lives that they want to live.
Speaker 1:There's a story in their second book what Do you Say? When I was meeting with this young woman this is the start of their senior year of college and we'd done the kind of last test prep push and I asked her. I said can I ask a question? I said what do you like to do most in the world? And she looked at me straight in the eye. She said honestly, I have no idea. I spend all of my time and energy trying to meet other people's expectations for me. I really don't know. And you're thinking oh my, oh my, you're bound to leave the household right.
Speaker 1:With, you know, hopes and dreams and a suitcase full of people's money. Here's the thing that was interesting. So she was from this wildly affluent family who were very controlling, and but she had somewhere along the line. Let's slip about the high school that she attends. They have this, they call it punch. It's a local girls girls school here in DC where girls work, uh, on, they design and create clothes that's a whole fashion line and then they have a big show where their friends will all walk their you know, model their clothes.
Speaker 1:So I'd heard about this and I snuck in there. Um, and I figured out. She told me when she was in the lineup and so I snuck over there, sat in the back row, curiously directly behind her mother. So when this girl's clothing starts, her friends start mocking her clothes, her mom puts her head down right into her phone For the whole five or seven minutes or whatever. When this girl's called me, I said well, there you have it, there you have it, and she got into the dream school I think it was her parents dream school, not her dream school and then, a year later, she sent me an email saying hey, you may be interested to know that I've left. Um, I won't say the school. I've left one university in New York and had then gone to I can't forget if it was Rizdi or Pratt or some gone on to a place where she could study fashion and she had known all the while that this is what she wanted to do, but it was not something that she was supported by, you know from, from at home. And and, um, you know, one of the things about teenagers is it's their jobs to figure out who, who am I and what I want to do in the world. Right, and, uh, we should really support that. Um, the second thing I I we'll probably talk more about this, but I'm like the world's biggest nerd when it comes to sleep and sleep deprivation, the amount of test prep money that's been spent and that I then use it on kids.
Speaker 1:I had this kid who was very anxious. Well, long story short, I kept practicing here and performing there, and the week of the test I asked her you know, sort of what are we doing this week? And talk to her about getting enough sleep, because when you don't have enough sleep, you don't think very well and your sense of control goes sideways, right, because all those executive functions and so anxiety really wreaks havoc on it. So I ended up offering her. I said could you get in bed? You know 1030 this night and her face falls. And I'm like what? And she's basically my friends, I don't want to miss out the text conference. I'm like what? And she's basically my friends. I don't want to miss out the text conference. And like you're a teenage girl, your friends are super important to you. I know you got great friends. I get it.
Speaker 1:I said, but for just this one week, would you be willing to go to bed earlier? Hems and haws. I said well, I said what if your mom paid you? She said what? I said what if mom just gave you incentive to like to go to because I can see that you're ambivalent about it and and she said my mom wouldn't pay me. I'm like you're kidding me right, and they pay me a fortune. They won't give you a little bit of cash. I said what if I pay you? She said what? I said what if I paid you? She said you won't pay me. I said I will. She said no, you won't. I said if you, so I want her hand yourself on by 10 o'clock.
Speaker 1:The embed lights out at 1030. I'll give you 20 bucks, she said for the week. I said I'll give you 20 bucks a night. She said, no, you won't. I said yes, well, no, you won't Try me. So Friday she shows up and I peel off five $20 bills right Several times. I got a 29. She was practicing at a 32 on the ACT for the school she needed, and this time, of course, she gets her 32. And what for me with this is doing this in a way that's respectful, not look, if you get A's, I'll give you, I'll give you 100 bucks. That's coercive. I'm saying, look, I know your friends are important to you, but I and I also know that you really want to do all this test and you're, you're stuck because you kind of feel like you have to choose. If it would help you, I'd be willing to do this.
Speaker 1:So the final piece on this was the kid I just worked with. This fall older sister went to an Ivy league university. This boy does not have same kind of learning. He's got ADHD, he's got learning disabilities, he's now anxious and depressed and he's kind of a mess. And I know how important sleep is to developing brains and for feeling a sense of control. And so I tell him the story and he's looking at me like what? And I said, would it make a difference? And he said maybe, so I have this picture, I can send it to you later.
Speaker 1:I peel off again a hundred bucks to James. He and I took the SAT on the same day, so I text him later. I said so, hey James, how was the test? He says he texts back he's language. Yeah, I think it went pretty good. Wait for it. I stayed awake the whole time. That's a good place to start, right. And he went up. He went up 160 points, which was not as much as I.
Speaker 1:He didn't, he didn't, he didn't do everything that he could do, but he, honest to gosh, he basically never did homework because it was so hard for him, because he was so tired all the time, but because I have, I know a little bit about how ADHD works and I also know quite a bit about sleep.
Speaker 1:His mom was constantly pushing and telling him and he would resist things. And because you know my experience when I treat kids respectfully, when any of us as educators treat kids respectfully, it makes it so much easier for them to tiptoe from maybe things that aren't in their best interest to things that are more in their best interest, because I'm not ramming it down their throat. So that's a kind of big, long answer to a really short question. But I just feel like I don't. I have neither carrot nor stick, right, I can't. I'm not going to take their cell phone, I can't bribe them, I'm not writing the college recommendations and I can see the kids are often ambivalent and I'm always interested in how, how to make it easier for them to want to do the things that they already want to do. Right, they're already in their own best interest.
Speaker 3:And it's important to honor what they like. The story about the girl in the fashion show was very convicting to me because it's like how many things that my kids are interested in and I'm not interested in them or you know, so I'll just like days off or our phones are such a huge culprit of that. So that was a really good reminder that to be invested in what our kids' interests are and you say, in what do you say? Your children are raised by you, but they are not you. I feel like I need to put that up on my wall somewhere.
Speaker 1:We just got a. We just got an email from a kid who he was 25, and he said to his parents I'm so glad you didn't have a plan for my life, right? I mean, that's really powerful. And of course, we as parents have expectations for our kids. We want them to be happy, we want them to be healthy, we want them fulfilling lives. I have this kid I'm working with. Oh my gosh, I adore her, but she showed up junior in high school. No accommodations for anything. Dyslexia, undiagnosed ADHD, undiagnosed Clinical anxiety, undiagnosed Clinical depression. I'm like what the heck is going on here, so understanding where these kids are and what matters to them. I mean, it's such a big deal and it's your point about taking an interest in where they are.
Speaker 1:her parents are just so intent on she has to go to this or that college. And I asked her what do you understand is the most important outcome of high school? And she said well, getting into good college. I said she said what? And I said listen, you're this great brain but it's complicated because you're anxious and depressed and ADHD. That's just a harder brain to navigate the world with. And I'll remind you what I told you when we first met that I'm committed to helping you get the scores that you want.
Speaker 1:But the most important outcome for you, for anyone leaving adolescence, is the brain you carry into adulthood. And I said so in some ways I could give a fig about your ACT scores. She says you shouldn't say that. I said so in some ways I could give a fig about your ACT scores. She says you shouldn't say that. I said what do you mean? And she said well, you're a test prep person. You can't say that you don't care about my scores. I said here's the great part I care about a healthy brain that works well and everything that I know that helps you in terms of sleep and being less stressed, all those things that lead to a better, healthier brain. They're also good for good test scores.
Speaker 2:So I can't lose. That's awesome. You spoke at a conference that we do for Prenda Guides a few weeks ago and when you spoke you said something and I want you to say it here too and I want to develop the idea more. We're talking about the three needs through self-determination theory, and you said that young kids will trade them. They'll trade their autonomy for connection, essentially, but then eventually a kid grows up to where they're no longer dependent on a parent for their survival needs. So then they're like okay, now I'm taking my autonomy and we see this story. You're telling us about the girl that switched colleges. It's like, hey, finally I'm on my own now and I'm not dependent, and now I'm going to make a choice. Right? Can you develop this idea and talk about that a little bit? It's so interesting to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I think you know, in the corners of the world where I think you and I, where we all operate, people tend to lean in to. Of the three of those, parents tend to lean most on the competency because they think that's the most important thing and if my kid is more competent she'll do better and then she'll actually want to engage more in school. And I get that. But it's frequently done at the expense of the kid's autonomy and a relatedness where we're really pushing them, pushing them, pushing them, pushing them. And curiously, by the way, when we're working on kids competency, we can make them be more competent, but we can make them feel less competent, right, because you're putting all this energy into math and math and math and math to help the math get better, but the kid doesn't. The kid feels like, oh my gosh, I must be the worst math person in the world, because this is all my dad ever talks about. Kind of thing. Kids, when they're little partly because they just most children, particularly first children will follow along with whatever the values are of their parents. Second and third kid tend to chart their own paths a little bit more. But also, when kids are little they'll go along with what mom and dad wants, typically because they don't have a choice. I mean, if you're four or seven, or nine, 11, you're pretty defenseless against the world. But when you become 14, 15, 16, 17, and you're starting to appropriately developmentally, appropriately individuate from parents and realize I'm going to have a life that's separate from my family, you have more confidence to be to, to embrace your autonomy, but also really that need to, because you know kids don't tend to tiptoe I mean, ken Ginsberg talks about this the parent kids don't tend to tiptoe away from their parents. They take a three steps back and take a running leap of like I'm out of here, man Right, and they need to really to break away and then and then and then typically circle back to the parents. But really was an adult relationship not as a kid parent relationship. And so the concern that I have, we have, is that parents are pushing and pushing, and pushing and they'll say, well, my kid it's fine with her, she doesn't mind this at all. Oftentimes she'll go along with it. Because if she says no to her pushy dad and then I start harshing on her, hating her, that is a really scary thing for a kid to risk giving up parental love, parental approval and certainly, you know, getting kicked out of the house kind of thing. And so I just want all parents to be mindful of this, that all I mean.
Speaker 1:We're reading research who talks about the need for autonomy in two-year-olds.
Speaker 1:Think about the first complete sentences that kids have not the boss of me, I do it mine.
Speaker 1:Right, you know, my daughter, when she was her older brother, who was also, you know, thinking he was in charge, so this, that the other, and she turned around on her, you know, pajama little foot, walked straight away from him, threw over her shoulder, not to be, I thought threw over her shoulder not to be, I thought that's pretty good. And so these needs are always there and certainly, depending on how everyone's got their own wiring and some people have a higher sense need for autonomy, some people lower, curiously curiously, the children who we see, who are the most air quotes poorly behaved, who are most likely to throw tantrums we just got to get that kid in line. It's not obvious to people that often those kids who seem like they're most ill behaving are simply kids with more sensitive stress responses and therefore feeling controlled is even more stressful to them and so, curiously, when they're misbehaving. They actually need more autonomy typically, not less, in order for them to not feel so stressed and then misbehave because they're so darn stressed.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I live with three of those children. We have lots of diagnoses, lots of acronyms. I just met someone, or I was talking to my son's basketball coach, and I could see that his son, on the court, started to get anxious and I had heard him tell a parent that he was autistic. And I, this little boy, while you know, he didn't get the ball. The other team took it. He stopped right on the court and put his fingers like this and just took three deep breaths. I was so proud of him and so I ran up. You know, afterwards I was like, oh my gosh, bennett, that was amazing. I saw you doing your deep breaths and his dad was like, yeah, he's autistic and ADHD. And I was like I have a son on the spectrum. I have lots of acronyms too, so I get it.
Speaker 3:And so I wanted to ask and what do you say? Because this was a question I had before I started reading that book and I want to talk about this a little more because I have a feeling a lot of parents have this question. So you talk about this pressure from schools, and so everyone feels like they're going to be blamed, the teacher feels like she's going to be or he's going to be blamed. The parent feels like they're going to be blamed if we're not getting the grade. The child's not doing well in school, and parents don't typically. I'm not going to brag about my son on social media if he has straight Fs, but yet you see the achievement awards and my son gotten to Stanford. You see that on social media, right, we feel like this responsibility, and it almost says something about us.
Speaker 3:So what should we do, though, if we have a school pressuring us to check their portal every day, check their grades? I get an email every single Wednesday. Sit down with your child and make sure that you're going over every single assignment. But there's so much happening here because my child, who's ADHD gifted and technically got a diagnosis of ODD. He's just oppositional. I don't think he has ODD, and he doesn't want to sit with me, you know, and he wants, he needs to have full sense of control, like you're saying. He has a very sensitive stress response, and. But the school is telling me I need to do this, and basically, the message I'm getting is I'm a bad parent if I'm not sitting with my child and my child's not performing well. So I want to tease this out a little bit Like what do we do with if the schools are putting this pressure on us? It's not just us putting the pressure on ourselves to take away autonomy.
Speaker 1:You know we're working on a third book right now and it's a bit of a workbook based on the self-driven child, where we have this kind of circle right of stress from here goes, you know, stress from the community goes to the teachers and the teachers goes to the parents. The parents go to the kids and the kids go to the community, and around and around and around it goes. And one of the questions we have is is who's responsible for what right? And so if you're the teacher, it's your, you're responsible for communicating clearly to a kid and to a parent what the expectations you have of them and why, and what's the educational value of that as a parent, as a kid, it's the kid's responsibility to do the work or not and I want to be really clear about that or not Right? And it's a parent's obligation, and particularly for the who, like you, have kids who are more complex, it's your obligation to offer support and advice.
Speaker 1:But I was giving a talk in New York City and the parent was talking about just this. The teacher said you got to make sure your kid gets a homework done and I said I feel very strongly. It is morally wrong to ask of someone else something that is impossible to do, because if your kid didn't refuse to do his homework, what are you going to do? You're going to duct tape him to a chair. You cannot make him do it.
Speaker 3:I couldn't make my child go to school and so he is home educated because of that. And I had a teacher tell me oh well, you can't just bail him out. I said do you want to sit in the parking lot for three hours a day? Do you want me to physically force him into the classroom? Instead, let's look at why isn't he walking into the classroom? Because he has so much anxiety and he's PDA, so pathological demand avoidance and having all these demands in the classroom, I couldn't physically force him into that building if I tried, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so a hundred percent. And my feeling on this is I mean we, we have several things. One is that we offer help and we offer advice. I mean my daughter who was diagnosed at age 18 and a half with autism. She had a neuropsych evaluation done in middle school. She was anxious, she was depressed. We could see the symptoms of this but it never dawned on me that she might because she didn't do anything, anything that was stereotypically apparent.
Speaker 1:You know for for and so, and I saw her struggling with going to school for a whole bunch of different reasons and I want to do everything I could to support her and have her be in school, where she was there and friends and not hiding, and so every possible accommodation let's go to Starbucks, let's get another, whatever before we go there. And I remember she had this history test. My daughter's at that time was pretty perfectionistic and from my perspective the test was ridiculous. And I say, can I help you study for it? And I'm looking this like I mean like the most significant 23 Greek sculptors from the 12th century. I'm like, oh my God, I couldn't memorize this. And I looked at her, I closed the book. I said, listen, I'm pretty confident that none of this stuff matters. I said but I would like for you to do is to go to school, because you have your friends and you like your art class and your science teacher thinks you're really cool and you think she's really cool and, honestly, she's going to fail the test. And I said are you sure? She said yeah. I said because, listen, I don't want to hear about a B plus or a C minus. I said are you going to fail? She said yes. I said here's my deal If you will go to test, go to school and you will fail that test, I will immediately check you out of school and we will walk down the street to the diner and we will have lunch at 1153 on a Tuesday and we'll have ice cream at lunch during a Tuesday. If you'll just take the test, because I couldn't give a fig about the grade that you get, it doesn't matter. What I care about. Back to my other kid is healthy brain development. And she looked at me like are you kidding me? And she took the test.
Speaker 1:In hindsight I don't know whether she actually failed it or not, she probably owes me some ice cream, but part of it is that, you know, for us as parents, for us as teachers, teachers, when kids are struggling and not doing well, and I, and for what it's worth, I want kids to be and begin to educate. I want them to learn to read well, that's important. I want them to develop math skills. These things are all important, but the idea that any given assignment on any given day has any significance as opposed to healthy brain development, I just I fight that, I fight that. I fight that tooth and nail.
Speaker 1:So you know, if you've got a parent say, well, okay, well, this just isn't working for my kid, what else can we do? And you know, on the flip side, by the way, their teachers. I was in Atlanta and this teacher raised her hand and said well, you know, I understand all this stuff about homework and how it doesn't contribute at all, you know, in elementary school, but the parents expect us to give kids homework. I said what grade do you teach? She said kindergarten.
Speaker 3:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 1:And I said here's what I would gently ask of you I would like you to be a little bit more courageous, Because you know things about learning and you know things about developing brains that these parents don't know, and they're not trying to make you crazy or their kids crazy, but they're so worried that if their kid isn't getting homework and their neighbor's kid is getting homework that their kid is going to get behind. I said so read up on Peter Gray, you know. Go follow Lenora Skenazy, do all the things. Look at people who actually know the science of developing brains, because you try to go with the teacher and the teacher tries to go out at you and at some point, people who know better need to do better, so that we don't put unrealistic demands on families or on teachers or on students that serve no one's best interests.
Speaker 3:But why do teachers in the administration not know the science? Why do teachers in the administration not know the science.
Speaker 1:I'm just really curious about that. Well, I have a. Actually you guys know Katie McPherson, who's there in Arizona, right, and so I have multiple times now been at a school and it's some really thoughtful, knowledgeable educator. But then we'll get fearful and remind him or herself that people want to go to the school because they know how academic it is and people want to live in this community because they know of the schools. And then, ultimately, how kids do on these standardized tests is what props up the real estate values.
Speaker 1:And so I made this TikTok video because her corner of the world a bunch of bad stuff. I said, just so I can be clear. Oh, because Katie reached out to me and said they lost three kids by suicide in nine days and she talked with the mayor and the mayor's office said well, basically just this If we do a suicide prevention program, you know people want to come to school and the real estate values are at fault. I said so just so I was angry. Tiktok, Can someone please tell me how many adolescent suicides are acceptable to keep up the real estate values? And so a lot of this is driven by fear. A lot of it's driven by fear and by people who don't know.
Speaker 1:We're currently working on this lecture with the idea of the working title of brainless education, and if you look at what happens at most public schools and, frankly, many private most private schools as well it either seems apparent that the people who are teaching and leading there either don't know anything about how brains develop and what we learned in the last 50 years, or they just don't give a darn, and either way, you're culpable. We're developing brains or, more importantly, we're developing mental health disorders, right, and so the responsible adults need to do a better job of acting like responsible adults, and this is not just school's fault and it's not just parents' fault. We can certainly pull in social media and those brilliant folks out in Silicon Valley. There are a lot of different causes for this, but I'm not that interested in assigning blame to anyone. Lot of different causes for this, but I'm not that interested in assigning blame to anyone. I'm interested in what is effective, you know to, to making a better learning and growing up in world, you know for all of our kids.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you had mentioned brainless education to me prior to coming on, and I Googled it, cause I didn't know what you meant by that and all that came back was jellyfish and and. But I think this needs to be a thing, though, because it is true we have all of these hundreds of thousands of kids in these classrooms that are in environments that are not conducive to healthy brain development.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like I just interviewed Lisa Lewis, who has a book called the sleep to survive team if you haven't read it, and she talks about what driving her son to school as a ninth grader. He's sound asleep at 7.10 in the morning, trying to get there for 7.40 school start time. And when I mean the literature on sleep deprivation in teens, it's endless, it's endless. And so she, to her everlasting credit as a journalist, wrote this piece that got picked up in the LA Times and then by a legislator, and it just went into place last year that in California the school start time cannot start before eight 30 in the morning.
Speaker 2:Great.
Speaker 1:And there are all of these other schools who talk about evidence-saving and blah, blah, blah, and they start school at seven, 40 in the morning. And I'm like please stop talking, because you're lying, you're lying, you're lying, you, you don't you, either you don't you, either, either you don't know or you don't care. And so for I mean my kids school, they brought in james moss, one of the country's foremost authority on sleep deprivation, and then they still have an eight o'clock start time. And I'm like you have the power to do this. I mean, you know, if just please don't be hypocritical, just say we know that eight o'clock start time is bad for kids' brains, but we think it's worth it. We think it's worth the amount of stress on them because we do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, my son's high school, yeah, it starts at 11. And so the middle schoolers, though, have to start at eight, but then the high schoolers get to start at 11. I think that is smart. Then, hopefully, more schools start to do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we had a micro school once that said that they wanted to meet between 4.30 and 9 pm and we were like, great, if that's when everyone is like the most awake, then let's do it then.
Speaker 1:I mean, as an educator, wouldn't you rather teach kids for four hours who slept for eight than teach them for eight when they slept for four?
Speaker 3:Yes, definitely. It's almost like we can create a riddle out of that. Yes, definitely.
Speaker 2:It's almost like we can create a riddle out of that. It is a riddle man. Okay. So we keep talking about healthy brain development and I would love to just like what are, like the top three things that the indicators that your teenager, your child, is is having a healthy brain. What things will you see them able to do or not do? That kind of can be a parent's guide to like. Is this happening? Do I have a problem here in my home?
Speaker 1:I mean, one way to look at this is you can look at the absence of it, right? So if you look at some of the characteristics of people who are anxious and people who are depressed, right, I mean, the biggest thing is, if kids are irritable all the time, isn't that just the teenage condition? No, it's not the teenage condition, it's the sleep derived teenage condition, Right? And so you know kids who are kids who are well rested, who aren't tired of the time, who aren't cranky all the time, kids who are doing things and they talk about how much they like things. Kids who are doing things and they talk about how much they like things. I mean, we have a chapter in the of a what do you say? We're talking with kids about positive psych, about talking with kids about the pursuit of happiness and all the Martin Seligman stuff of what do we know about positive psychology?
Speaker 1:Bill was lecturing in Texas and ask kids, how many of you want to be happy as adults? And they kind of sheepishly raise their hands like duh. He said what do you understand is necessary to be happy as adults? And I said getting into a good college, just like that student I talked about before, and I thought well, if only that were the case, not only would I be the most valuable person in America, but I'd be delivering happiness because I help kids, I mean, give me a break.
Speaker 1:And so the model for this is permanent, right, so it's positive emotions and some of this is the way that you're wired. But if kids are cranky all the time, not so good Engagement my girl with her clothes, stuff. My son, who's a music major and ADHD, mind you, and when he is deeply, I mean he'll sit there for five hours composing 16 bars of music to get it just right, and I mean it's total flow, experience, experience. I mean you just can't get any better than that. Relationships, meaning, and that accomplishment is part of it, but it's only one fifth of the equation.
Speaker 1:So when you see kids are happy, when they're doing well in school, they they have something that they like going to school. I mean, and it might be for the school, something that they like going to school, and it might be for the school, but it might be for theater or soccer or cheer or robotics or whatever. For me, one way that I feel about this is that every kid needs to have something that they look forward to during the school day. It can be this teacher, it can be that friend, it can be that class, it can be after school. But if you have nothing to look forward to in school day. Something is definitely not right, possibly with the school, possibly with your kid, possibly with both.
Speaker 1:But you know, I would look for a teenage to have, the same thing I would look for in my spouse.
Speaker 2:I want her to be happy most of the time?
Speaker 1:Does she have cranky days and something's got to bend our ship? Sure, she's a human being. Do I Same thing? But I mean the. The ideal learning environment is is alert and relaxed. And there's that big study that came out of Yale that said 75 percent of kids report being bored and stressed. It's terrible for development, it is terrible and it's terrible for learning.
Speaker 3:But we've normalized it. We've normalized that reaction.
Speaker 1:Yes, we have, you know. I mean, I only got three and a half more years to get through this. Are you kidding me? Right, and so? And if I were a teacher? Golly, I don't want to be teaching kids where I have to convince them and bribe them or threaten them to give a rat's patooie about what it is. I'm teaching Something's not right there.
Speaker 1:Right, something's not right there. So I mean kids who are happy. I mean, when you think about college, at front college or college counselors kids who are happy learn well. Right, they're more engaged to students. We think kids who engage more are going to be happier. Actually, more often the brain chemistry goes the other direction, right? So we should want our kids to have a resting state that, as some stress, where they challenge themselves, they push themselves socially, academically, whatever, but where most of the time they feel challenged but they don't feel threatened. And most kids go to school feeling threatened either socially or academically a lot of the time. It's not what we want.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally. So we survey all of the Prenda kids that come in and we ask them this question. We say pick a word that describes school Stressful, boring, scary, fun, exciting, interesting and we see, when they're talking about their pre-Prenda experience, just like their normal, even, like kids that come from homeschool even, or a charter school or public school, private school it's like I can't find the statistic right now. It's like I want to say like 20% of kids are picking words that are positive, associated with school. And then, after like six months at Prenda, where we try, where we felt like the whole goal of Prenda is to provide a learning experience where those three needs are met, 86% of students are saying fun, exciting, interesting, it matters, and it's not, it's not complicated to do, it's not expensive, it's just, you just have to know about it and be intentional about creating this environment. It's very possible to change these.
Speaker 1:And the thing about it and for people who doubt this right, who doubt what you just shared there, katie, is that people can, and then you decide you want to like woohoo.
Speaker 1:Then you come back and you bring it back down and you recover your breath and you're like I did this, or you put me on a treadmill and Adrian and Katie over there going faster and faster and faster this thing, and so nobody will ever work as hard when someone else is pressuring them as they will work when they're pressuring themselves because they feel a sense of control and it matters to them. It, and then just to get people to leave me alone. But when it's, you know, the passion and pursuit of pastimes is Reed Larson would talk about, kids will work on something obsessively because it matters to them and they're working even harder than they would have been if someone else tried to get them to do it. And I mean it's thrilling to think that you have 86% of kids that are working hard and really asking a lot of themselves and they are excited by it and for it, not strapped.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we didn't make school easier to get to change that statistic right. And when they are setting their goals and that little bookend data point is that, on average, kids that are learning in this environment set a goal for 1.8 years of growth in method and language almost twice what their same age peers are being asked to do. They're running harder and faster towards these goals and doing it with a lot more fun and excitement and interest, and it's just like. It seems so obvious to me.
Speaker 1:So I'm just like and so much of the language behind that. I mean I just, I just, I adore it. I mean the whole thing, top to bottom, is great and you know, for people who are questioning you know how to go about this. Some of the language that I'm sure you guys do is the same kind of literature that we follow. We have a chapter in what you say about expectations, and the language of expectation is simply that, katie, I am confident that if that's what you want to do, you can get that done Right, that you can do this. One point you that if that's what you want to do, you can, you can get that done right, that you can, you can do this. One point I, I, I, you know, if you need help, you let me know, right, um, but I'm comfy, can do this. Where the, the toxic, you know, the Jennifer Wallace is, I expect that you must. You're going to do this by or or bad things are going to happen.
Speaker 3:And then my half, my stress that you can't even do that thing. So you said, like no one will ever work as hard if someone else is pressuring you. And what do you say? You talk about this and how parents feel pressured and they like relieves our stress to control our kid. But then you talk about the rat study where it's like actually, tell the wheel.
Speaker 2:But then you talk about the rat study where it's like actually Tell the rat story, tell the wheel, tell the rat study, wheel thing, yeah, please.
Speaker 3:Yes, okay.
Speaker 2:Katie loves the rat study. If we can get a good rat study in here, this will be primo.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so this is so. Jess Leahy talks about this too in her book the Gift of Failure Wonderful book. Guy named Steve Mayer and he was actually he and Martin Seligman, he of the positive psychology they did work for decades on what's called learned helplessness, where they systematically mistreated these rats or dogs and then they would leave them in a cage and the doors open and they would just sit there and endure it. This paradigm paper and it's worth looking up. It's called Learned Helplessness at 50, what we Got Right and what we Got Wrong. And so what we got wrong was rather that these rats, these animals, not that they learned to be helpless, but they failed to learn a sense of control. Okay, so how do you learn a sense of control? What they did in this paradigm experiment?
Speaker 1:They have two rats in a cage, rat A and rat B. Their tails are off the back. They get a shock. It's not life-threatening, but it's really annoying and it causes all the stress. Rat A has a wheel. When he spins the wheel, it attenuates, it stops the shock and he's like oh this is fantastic.
Speaker 1:When he does this, you get this massive activation left frontal lobe of the prefrontal cortex and it's coping. It dampens down the stress response At a neurological level. This is what coping looks like An adverse experience. There's something I can do. They do this on and on and on until you deepen the wiring between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala. Happens to be the single strongest neurological marker of mental health. So those are good things.
Speaker 1:Put him in other situations big, scary ride, loud music, whatever he does, and freak out. He also copes and figures out. How do I navigate this? Meaning that learning to cope in one situation is trans situation. Allows your brain to then go into coping mode in other places. This is a really good thing. Allows your brain to then go into coping mode in other places this is a really good thing.
Speaker 1:Rat B also has a wheel and he spins and nothing happens. So he's not having a good time with this and he just becomes more and more and more anxious. Here's the really clever thing that they did. And this pay attention so as parents. So they yoke the two rats. Rat A spins the wheel. It stops the shock for him and for Brother Rat B. Brother Rat B, like you're the best, I mean so. He's great, he's super happy. They both experience the same amount of stress, the same amount of shock, with the exception that A has something he can do about it and B is along for the ride. Rat B remains a basket case. He's a damsel in distress, constantly being saved and gets none of the cognitive benefits. In fact, it's worse from an anxiety perspective. A has the exact same amount of hard stuff, but becomes this completely emotionally resilient, courageous give me a cape, I'm going to go fight the bad guy kind of rat. So as parents, we have this tendency, when we see our kids struggle, to want to jump in and save them. I get it. I'm a dad, I've got two kids. You're wired to do this. But same thing as teachers we want to help. We don't want to see our kids struggle, but we really want to do everything we can, not to save kids or solve things for them that they can solve for themselves. We offer a lot of help. We offer a lot of support. We want them to have the sense that they have navigated, that they have solved these things for themselves.
Speaker 1:There's a beautiful line in the movie Miss Peregrine's School for Gifted Children where, at the end of it, there's the one character who his secret power is. He can see these terrible beasts, but he can't do anything about them. All the other ones have these superpowers. They can battle, but they're blind to the threat. And at the end of it he turns to his friend and he said I'm so sorry I couldn't protect you. And she turns to him and says you did something so much more powerful. You allowed us to feel brave Because he was able to help them see what they needed to see. And then they protected themselves and vanquished the monsters.
Speaker 1:And so you know, watch the movie, read the paper, learn to help us instead of 50. We actually talked with Dr Mayer about this at 50, it's a real. We actually talked with Dr Mayer about this and we said when we know that when they do this with rats and adolescents, it appears to inoculate them against the effects of stress for their entire lifetime. And Bill asked so should we be setting up things where we like kind of mildly shock kids as teenagers? Right, dr Mary says it's a really intriguing question.
Speaker 2:If we could just train the brain in that like scientific lab, and then they'd be fine.
Speaker 1:And the thing that happens, of course, is parents will ask me all the time when I'm lecturing you know well should we be setting, you know, setting our kids up for hard things? The world provides kids with plenty of stuff. That's hard. Just think about freaking the lunchroom. That's hard enough, right? The challenge is how do we support kids in ways that they feel that sense of control, that sense of agency you mentioned before, so that they can navigate this? And the hard part is, as parents, when we get anxious, we naturally want to go in and be rat A and solve things for our kids when they can, even if it's bumpy, including homework oh my gosh, something that's less than perfect. We just don't want to deprive kids of the opportunity to have healthy struggles, because this is when they're wiring the brains that they carry into adulthood.
Speaker 3:Because this is when they're wiring the brains that they carry into adulthood. And that's what I'm wondering if, why these things are so enticing to kids because they're seeking all this control right? Can you talk a little bit about dopamine in the brain and dopamine burnout and the default mode network, and why it's so important for kids to have radical downtime?
Speaker 1:So I mean there's a lot to be said about technology and we talk about this in both of our books and I love Devorah Heidner's work and on and on it goes. One of the things with one of the hard things about cell phones is it meets a lot of needs. Okay, and so it's not all good, it's not all bad. Our feeling about this is our work. Parents should be teaching our kids to use these technologies in ways that are healthy, because, unlike alcohol or gambling, where you can live a life and never drink a drop of alcohol, you can't live a life in today's world without technology. So parents who think they want to control their kids' use of technology are just wrong, wrong, wrong. I mean, if your kids are in elementary school, I get it. Nobody needs an iPad when they're four. But when they become adolescents, they need to learn how to use this as a tool for communication, for their own enjoyment, for their education. But asking article that we're working on, asking kids how do you blow off stress? And what a lot of kids do is they say I go on my phone and what they're really doing is stopping an inflow of stress because they distract themselves from something that's stressful or thoughts, but they're doing nothing to increase the outflows of stress. So I really think as a community and schools, we should talk in a really clear way to kids about the difference between those things right.
Speaker 1:Part of the reason that these things are so addictive is it's well, it's a conversation with you guys, or the entire effing universe that I can access by my phone. There's that right. Or, as Dana Boyd would say, you know, social media. It's not so much the kids are addicted to their phones or to social media, but they're addicted to other teens, and so this is the. This is where they see other kids who think they're cooler, whatever it happens to be. Here's the problem with. One of the problems with cell phones is this dopamine is released in the anticipation of reward. It's a nerd excited to our neurotransmitter, right? So you're about to score a goal. You about to talk to someone you're cute, who thinks cute. You're about to open a present.
Speaker 2:It could be anything, and then it sucks, but until you open, it could be something really amazing.
Speaker 1:Right, you get a text until like. This could be great. This could be someone who's really fun, something's really important.
Speaker 1:It's your mom telling you to do whatever, but until that moment it could be the coolest person in the world, your mom's still cool, and so the problem is the the cell phone. Every time we get an alert, our brain anticipates something that's cool and fun, because dopamine isn't excited to our neurotransmitter. If you're in it all the time, your brain will downregulate the number of receptors because you just, otherwise you'll fry your brain. And so adolescents are in fantastically. One, they have lowered baseline levels of dopamine to begin with, but two because the way their brains are being wired, they're much more likely to develop addiction to anything.
Speaker 1:This is why you know Jess Leahy in the addiction oculation delay delay, delay, delay If your kid's going to drink alcohol or smoke pot or anything delay delay, delay, and what we simply want to do with cell phones is, or anything with the. You know, anything like a cell phone is not beyond it all the time, and so what we talk about in our book this guy named Cliff Sessman talks about you just want to go back and forth between high dopamine activities and low dopamine activities.
Speaker 2:It's okay to spend a couple hours playing video games, but then go for a walk take the dog out.
Speaker 1:She needs some air, right. Help your mom with the dishes, whatever. Just don't be on this phone hour after hour after hour after hour after hour after hour, because it's really not good for developing brains.
Speaker 1:The hard part for kids is they don't honestly know what a world felt like before cell phones. We, as parents, do. One of the big concerns that we have apart from, you know, wasting time on cell phones is what you talked about, adrian the default mode network. So for people who don't know this, it's the default mode network is what our brains do when we're not actively involved in activity, and the default mode network uses like 70 percent of a brain's energy. What is involved with it?
Speaker 1:Autobiographical planning right. We think about our past, we project ourselves into the future. We think about our friendships. We think about our values. We think about ourselves. We think about who do I want to be. That's not the most important outcome of adolescence, of who do I want to be and what do I want to be in this world. It's also vital for developing a sense of empathy. We could probably use more of that in the world.
Speaker 1:Right, and the default mode network kicks in what we describe as radical digital downtime. So it's daydreaming, it's mind-wandering, it's different types of meditation, and when kids are so busy all the time and feel in the culture where they can't waste time either from, they feel about that themselves, or what their parents or teachers are telling them. And we think that, well, the article on this it's fantastic, it's Mary Helen Imordino-Yang, and the NIH article is simply titled Rest is Not Idleness is simply titled rest is not idleness. And the way that brains develop, much like with lifting weights, is we exert and then we recover, we stress and then we rest. And if we're not getting that rest or that recovery, then we're not getting the fullest benefit out of the hard work that we're doing. When you think about teaching, it's not what you teach me, it's how I then do, or do not reflect on it later.
Speaker 3:And go, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:And we make those connections. And so for people who have themselves, you know, hyper-scheduled and busy all the time, it's fine, you're productive, but good luck having deep thoughts or eureka moments, right, you know. Or developing a deeper sense of who you are and what you want to contribute to the world, you know, or developing a deeper sense of who you are and what you want to contribute to the world.
Speaker 3:I know I want to carry around a printable about the default mode network and hand it out to any adult that has a baby on a cell phone at the grocery store. I'm just like, if you know about this, or I'll watch parents at basketball practice with their two three-year-olds handing them the ipad handing them, and I was like there's so much going on here that they could be watching the kids play. They could, you know, bring toys, like there's so many other things they could be doing, but they're like forcing this into their face because it's easier for them. So I think once we know about this, though, then we can do better. So many parents just don't know that it is very detrimental to brain development. So I am appreciative of your work and really helping me understand this as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and Catherine Steiner-Adair has this wonderful book called the Big Disconnect. And it's just that. I mean, I was my my son was going through medical treatment actually both my kids at Children's National. I'm over there and watching all these parents with like three-year-olds and it's exactly that they're on their phone, the parents are on their phone and the kids are on an iPad and it's like people were designed for human. You know, we were designed to connect with other people, right? Yeah, I'm good, I'm good.
Speaker 2:I'm good guests this question and typically we let them choose who what the answer to this question is. But I know I I just want you to share your personal experience, so I'll ask you the question and then um tell you your answer. Essentially, that's what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 3:We're gonna take away your autonomy and your agency.
Speaker 2:Okay, so who is someone who has kindled your love of learning, curiosity, motivation or passion or like really seeing you as a human? And I've heard you tell this story about when you were in, I think, middle school and you had to take a break from school for mental health and you came back and there was a teacher. Will you share?
Speaker 1:that story with us.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So people may or may not know about ACE scores of adverse childhood experiences and kind of rough stuff not so good on development brains, and I have an ACE score of four. So my dad was a problem during care and eventually drank himself to death all the health related stuff. My mom struggled with her mental health and she was in and out of institutions for a while and eventually it kind of overwhelmed my nervous system and I ended up spending about three months in a pediatric psychiatric hospital in seventh grade and it was exactly what I needed. It was a big timeout. My parents were doing the best they could but it wasn't exactly the best living environment for me at that time and I was really anxious.
Speaker 1:When I came back to school and I went to tiny public schools and up in rural Connecticut and my favorite teacher was Ms Green, my math teacher, and I sort of tiptoe back and I'm going down the hall and I and I tiptoe and I kind of poke my head in her door and I was expecting her to be like well, mr Johnson, where's all that homework you owe me or those tests, right? Because in my view I had always. You know, I thought my teachers liked me because I was so good at school and I aced all their tests and I made them look good and made their lives easier and she and so I thought it was going to be in all sorts of trouble. And she, she lifts her head up from her desk been grading papers and her face just gets as wide as it smile, gets as wide as it can be and she's just like Ned, how are you? And I was just sort of stunned almost, because it had never occurred to me that here this adult liked me, not like my grades, not like my whatever, whatever and I say this all the time to any, any educator that we go back to that, that self-determination through the model of motivation, of the strength of that connection.
Speaker 1:And one of the things that I think I'm marginally better at than most, than some of the people who do the kind of work that I do, is I I like almost everybody, people have to really work hard to turn my ire, and especially kids really were hard to turn my ire, and especially kids, and I have the best job in the world, as does anyone who is a teacher, particularly if you get the chance to work with kids one-on-one, to see them as they are. You know flaws and all, all things are messy. You know homework done or not Right, and so it is. It's just always struck me of of the power of that, because kids in a perfect world have parents or caregivers who love them and support them. But there's something really profound about a kid having an adult who doesn't have to like them.
Speaker 1:You know it isn't mom or dad. Well, you have to say that you're my dad or you're my grandma. You know it isn't mom or dad. Well, you have to say that you're my dad or you're my grandma, and someone else who just takes an interest in the kid, for them, not for the performance. Yeah, it makes it. I think about her a lot. I'm not. I've lost track of where it's hard to Google Mrs Green and find there's no internet back there, so I don't really.
Speaker 1:I don't really know. There's no internet back there so I don't really know. But wherever she is, I'm. She made my reentry back into school feel safe and made me feel valuable, and despite all the headwinds that I continue to have in our family, it's just, you know, it's hard stuff.
Speaker 1:But I say this to parents especially when your kids aren't doing well, our fears are always about the future, not the present. We worry that they'll get stuck someplace, because it's bad now to be stuck there forever. And I would say to any concerned parent what I know about my experience is that it was not pretty, it was not good for a while, but doggone it. I did have a brain in my head and I did want my life to work out. And so your kids, no matter how badly things seem to go in, please hold to the truth that they not only have a brain but a developing brain and they want their lives to work out. And so we just don't. We just don't give up on kids that way. I'm convinced that most, most of the time, that way.
Speaker 3:I'm convinced that most, most of the time, most of the time, things work out Okay. Yeah, that is so beautiful. I just saw an Instagram reel and this woman said you know, we can learn so much about dog or from dogs. Whenever a child walks in the room, be like a dog, like you're so excited that they're coming and you just light up. And so I've been doing that the past couple of days and my kids at first were like what are you doing, mom? You're so weird. But my seven-year-old especially I could just see this connection and he matches that energy. But it's like, whenever a child walks into the room, just light up. They are the most important person on this planet and their developing brain is going to develop in such healthy ways.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's so true. I mean, I was giving a lecture and talking about when we had infants, right, and you would sit there like this, those ears, I mean, how could you? Everything about you is adorable, right? Or the first time you know you go out on a date with someone, you realize, oh my God, I just adore this person and you just stare in their eyes. How could you possibly be this cool, right? And, and I defy someone to tell me, when does that ever get old, you know? So I love, I love that picture of the mom like puppy wig, like, oh, it's so good to see you.
Speaker 3:Yes, I know so excited. So how can listeners learn more about your work? We talked about your books, but where can they find you?
Speaker 1:Well, so the website is theselfdrivenchildcom, and I am on occasionally a little noisy over on TikTok, the other.
Speaker 3:Ned.
Speaker 1:Johnson is my TikTok handle, and so I like to share a few things that I think might be helpful or at least mildly amusing to folks. So thank you for that Well.
Speaker 3:thank you so much, ned, for coming. This was such a wonderful conversation.
Speaker 1:I love the work that you guys do. I mean for me. I love doing this one-on-one for people who can take the stuff that you know and some of the stuff that I think I know and do this at scale. We just need to have you guys be in every school.
Speaker 3:Hey, you heard it.
Speaker 1:You heard it from Ned Johnson, oh my goodness, you know, I mean, yeah, it's, you know. School should not be a source of suffering.
Speaker 3:No, amen. Thank you, ned. That's it for today. We hope you enjoyed this episode of the kindled podcast. Check out our other episode with ned's co-author, bill sticksrood, in episode three. If this episode was helpful to you, please like, subscribe and follow us on social at prenda learn. If you have a question you'd like us to address, all you need to do is email us at podcast at Prendacom. You can also join our Facebook group called the Kindled Collective and you can subscribe to our weekly newsletter, the Sunday Spark.
Speaker 2:The Kindle Podcast is brought to you by Prenda. Prenda makes it easy for you to start and run an amazing micro school based on all of the ideas and principles we talk about here on the Kindle podcast. If you want to learn more about becoming a Prenda guide, just go to Prendacom. Thanks for listening and remember to keep kindling.
