Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - Debunking the Lies of Parenting Influencers

00:00:00.000 Hello, all. So I've said this before. I have said that I want to stop following parenting

00:00:12.980 influencers, or at least the majority, the majority of parenting advice influencers, 0.97

00:00:18.700 because I think that what they're serving me is a lot of bullshit and pseudoscience. 0.96

00:00:24.160 But what do I know? 0.98

00:00:25.600 I'm not an expert on anything.

00:00:28.160 Nothing.

00:00:29.140 So I thought that I would call in an expert to see if I'm right.

00:00:34.180 If calling bullshit on a lot of these accounts that are telling me things like, 0.98

00:00:38.300 timeouts are bad, screen time is going to rot their brain, 0.99

00:00:41.800 you should never yell at them,

00:00:43.540 you should never really do anything that remotely involves parenting your children,

00:00:48.940 am I wrong?

00:00:49.840 Am I the one that's wrong here?

00:00:51.560 If I am, I would love someone to tell me.

00:00:54.780 So today I'm bringing in an expert.

00:00:57.660 I am Dr. Kira Goodwin.

00:00:59.720 I am a child psychologist and a mother to four.

00:01:04.240 And I started a nonprofit organization a few years ago called Parenting Translator

00:01:10.000 with the goal of taking all the research that's out there on parenting and child development

00:01:14.740 and translating it for parents.

00:01:16.760 And I started doing that because when I became a parent myself, I realized that, you know, through my training, I'd learned all of this research.

00:01:26.140 And it just, I would talk to my mom friends and say, oh, well, you know about this study.

00:01:31.640 And they would have no idea what I was talking about.

00:01:33.320 And I realized we have this huge problem where we have all this research, but it's not actually reaching the people who need it.

00:01:40.040 Right, right.

00:01:40.780 And I love that.

00:01:42.080 I really like your account, Parenting Translator.

00:01:45.380 I hold you up there with people like Emily Oster, who we're having on the show in—actually, I'm talking to her next week.

00:01:54.920 Oh, great.

00:01:55.480 Who take research and data and just, as your account says, translate it for moms, but without a lot of the judgment that I see in a lot of other parenting advice accounts, which I just, my biggest issue with them is I feel like they're just giving me another job.

00:02:17.920 And on top of being my child's mom, it's less advice and so much more judgment and almost marching orders at this point.

00:02:31.860 Yes. Well, I think, you know, anybody who actually has really delved into the parenting research knows that, first of all, the research is really limited.

00:02:39.600 Like we don't have the most high quality research on parenting because it's you can't randomly assign people to make different parenting decisions.

00:02:48.280 So most of the research we have is limited and most of it doesn't give clear marching orders, like you said.

00:02:54.800 So anybody who's delved into this research knows that saying like these broad statements that I see on social media, like timeout is going to harm your child's brain.

00:03:06.000 It's like we don't have a single research study showing that.

00:03:09.600 But, you know, you can't make broad statements like that because we don't really know.

00:03:15.740 Right.

00:03:15.980 But you know what?

00:03:16.840 I see those all the time.

00:03:18.220 I see time out will harm your child's brain.

00:03:21.580 And they go so far.

00:03:23.220 They go so far into my child's future, too.

00:03:26.680 They say things like this will cause them to have attachment issues for the rest of their life.

00:03:32.180 They will never, ever find a romantic partner.

00:03:36.760 They will fail in the workplace.

00:03:39.240 Exactly. It's intense, man. But there's no research to back any of this up. Right. Right. There there is a lot of general statements that you'll see on social media. You know, like the timeout one is an example. I saw one this morning about how screen time will, you know, again, I feel like there's always they're always bringing in brain development. So what will ruin your child's brain development? And, you know, we have no evidence on that either.

00:04:06.300 Um, so I think when you see these broad statements and, you know, this always and harming and,

00:04:14.920 and projecting into the future, that's when like your radar should go up and be like, wait,

00:04:20.420 is this accurate? Uh, and most of the time I would say it isn't.

00:04:26.420 Because, because a lot of the research isn't there. Before we dive into some of the more

00:04:31.560 frequent things that I see from parenting and vice influencers, I want to talk about the many,

00:04:37.640 many reasons the research isn't there. And there, you know, as we mentioned before, there's a lot

00:04:42.420 of reasons. It's a hard thing to study, first of all. But also, it's a thing that for so long

00:04:49.700 only concerned women. And I think the academic establishment just wasn't interested in that. 0.98

00:04:56.340 Yes, that is so true.

00:04:58.500 I saw a stand-up performance from Amy Schumer where she was talking about something related

00:05:03.540 to pregnancy, and she was like, well, there's no research on this because it only happens

00:05:07.060 to women. 1.00

00:05:07.760 And it's so true. 1.00

00:05:09.540 It's so true.

00:05:10.340 For so long, parenting has been seen in the academic world as, it sounds kind of harsh

00:05:20.540 to say this, but like a field that's not as respected as, you know, cancer research or,

00:05:26.480 you know, some of these more medical fields. It's kind of seemed like a soft science,

00:05:31.360 whereas, you know, there's so little research on some of the parenting struggles that we have

00:05:37.700 every day. Like there's not a single research study on the best potty training method or not

00:05:43.660 a really high quality study, I should say. And that's something we all deal with. Like,

00:05:49.380 why don't we know the best method of potty training? But we do know why men can't get 1.00

00:05:54.680 erections. And we do. And we do have drugs for that. We do. We do. Yeah. Science really swooped

00:06:01.760 right in. Swooped right in and took care of that problem for them. Exactly. Exactly. But potty

00:06:07.400 training, you know, we're left in the dark. Exactly. Which is which is crazy. And it's so

00:06:12.780 I was actually interviewing someone on the show yesterday, a reporter who covers influencers and

00:06:18.820 she was talking about potty training because we always go off on the tangents and i'm like you

00:06:23.560 know now that i've hit third baby i'm like i just plop them on the potty with some screen time

00:06:29.100 and when they poop i give them an m&m right and i mean all of the thing is all of the things the

00:06:37.280 parenting influencers the parenting advice influencers say not to do are things that i do

00:06:43.140 so yeah i my kids go to timeout but also like if they knew what flipping me off was that's what

00:06:50.500 they do when i put them in timeout because they essentially just look at me like uh-huh whatever

00:06:57.140 i'll see you in five or i give them so much screen time to the extent that i'm like okay

00:07:03.960 tv screens are good youtube bad like and but my kids are like real smart they're smart they're 0.54

00:07:11.060 fun they're like socially adjusted i don't want to be told that i'm fucking it up yes yes i always

00:07:19.060 wonder when i see a lot of these gentle parenting influencers um do do they actually take care of

00:07:25.180 their or you know do do they have just the easiest kids in the world because i just don't understand

00:07:31.280 how these positive strategies how they can implement these all the time it just

00:07:39.100 seems so unrealistic to me. So unrealistic. And I try, right? I try all of the, I talk softly.

00:07:48.100 We do talk about our feelings, even though I mock this all of the time, but we do it. We totally do

00:07:53.220 it. We talk things out. We have conversations. I have those little cards where you start

00:07:57.700 conversations at dinner. I crawl into bed with each of them individually and discuss how they

00:08:05.760 felt during the day. And yet, when they're like in the thick of their own shit and their own 1.00

00:08:11.840 tantrums, there is no amount of gentle talk that is going to make them put on the green coat. 0.99

00:08:17.900 Yes, exactly.

00:08:20.080 And I, you know, again, I'm not an expert. I'm just a mom with kids. I think they mostly grow

00:08:26.920 out of it. I've got a six-year-old now who's freaking awesome. Awesome. Right? And like,

00:08:31.780 he was a man. And I tell him all the time, I'm like, God, when you were four, you were the worst.

00:08:35.640 He's like, I know I was the worst. And, you know, now my four-year-old is really difficult. I think she's just going to grow out of it. With the first one, you're like, something is developmentally wrong. This child is malfunctioning.

00:08:50.620 Exactly. Yes. And I think that's something that the gentle parenting influencers don't make clear that you can and probably should do both, you know, these gentle parenting techniques and old school parenting techniques, for lack of a better term.

00:09:05.520 you know that's what the research really finds to be most effective you know we we should be

00:09:10.960 talking about our feelings with our kids we should be taking that perspective we should be you know

00:09:15.920 giving them the benefit of the doubt and explaining them explaining to them the rationale behind our

00:09:20.960 rules but also sometimes we do need to use consequences sometimes we have to set up reward

00:09:26.260 systems you know sometimes we have to give them an m&m for going to potty otherwise they would

00:09:30.840 maybe never use the potty i know if i didn't have like yeah not good not good if i didn't have a

00:09:37.740 reward system for my kids they would literally never get out the door for school and not even

00:09:43.200 like they would still be here at my house if i didn't bribe my children they wouldn't get out

00:09:50.700 of bed in the morning they wouldn't i mean my house is a zoo and again it's getting better

00:09:57.500 because the six-year-old is finally getting better but it just takes time it just takes time and when

00:10:03.160 you have all of these parenting influencers pushing their ideas and especially a lot of the

00:10:09.100 gentle parenting you you do feel like you're failing you do feel like you're failing when

00:10:15.480 they don't work and they don't work because kids be kids that's the thing when gentle parenting

00:10:20.520 doesn't work what i worry about is that parents first of all will feel like a failure and feel

00:10:25.000 a lot of shame about that. And secondly, we'll start in, you know, because they don't know what

00:10:30.860 to do, we'll use strategies that we know are ineffective. So banking or other sorts of

00:10:36.280 physical discipline or yelling, which, you know, we all, I think 90% of parents at least yell at

00:10:42.340 our kids. I know I do, but we also know that, you know, that's not effective. And so when parents

00:10:48.620 use these actual harsh techniques instead, you know, they're not going to work. I'm going to

00:10:54.580 feel terrible about yourself. When we actually do have strategies like consequences and timeout

00:11:00.100 and reward systems that even though, you know, the gentle parenting influencers will say those

00:11:05.520 are all harmful, but we have no evidence of that. And actually a lot of evidence that they're very

00:11:11.000 effective. So what I want parents to know is that if gentle, you know, if gentle parenting is

00:11:17.740 working, that's wonderful. Like keep going with it. But if it's not working, that we do have some

00:11:23.200 other strategies you could try that are not spanking in physical discipline or just, you know,

00:11:29.440 screaming your head off. Right. Right. Which is good. And those those are what I want to talk

00:11:33.800 about. I want to talk about some research backed things that we can actually do as parents that

00:11:40.560 debunk some of these myths that are constantly coming up on social media by people who are not

00:11:46.200 necessarily certified or qualified to be giving us advice. Yes, exactly. But let's take a quick

00:11:54.740 break and we'll get into it all when we get back. And we are back with Kara Goodwin, the parenting

00:12:12.500 translator. Before we were talking about how, look, if gentle parenting is working for you,

00:12:18.900 that's wonderful, but it might not. And there are things that are actually backed by research

00:12:23.860 that might work. So what are some of the parenting myths that are just constantly being served

00:12:31.080 on Instagram? And what is actual research that backs up, you know, what we could actually be

00:12:36.420 doing? Yes. So probably the most obvious one I see out there is that timeout is horrible to your

00:12:44.460 child's brain. And a lot of influencers will even cite this one study, which I don't even know how

00:12:52.460 they all like latched onto this one study. But the study actually is, it's a brain imaging study

00:12:59.480 that's looking at college students and how they react to being excluded while playing a video

00:13:06.020 game. And how that applies to timeout, I have no idea. In the study, they found that the college

00:13:13.940 students who were socially excluded showed a similar pattern of brain activation as people

00:13:20.620 who when they're physically in pain. So then the influencers took that study to mean that

00:13:26.280 when you're socially isolated, as in timeout, that you have a similar experience as you would

00:13:36.160 if you were actually being physically abused, which is just such an unbelievable stretch of

00:13:42.580 research. Like, I've never seen such a stretch of a research finding. That's amazing. That's

00:13:49.320 amazing. And no, I haven't seen that talked about before. And there is no, I mean, I don't see the

00:13:55.180 correlation at all? No, not at all. Wow. Wow. Okay. So is there any research about timeouts in kids?

00:14:04.480 So we have, you know, decades of research consistently showing that timeout is effective

00:14:10.840 for improving behavior. And, you know, the gentle parenting influencers would say, well,

00:14:16.640 I don't care if it actually works. I care about whether it's harmful or not. And we do have

00:14:21.220 research showing that there's absolutely no evidence any sort of long-term harm you know

00:14:27.060 socially emotionally for children with timeout so we have research we we have research showing

00:14:32.840 no evidence of harm um and there is no research showing that has any impact in any negative way

00:14:40.900 on children and we know also that um you know these research studies that have used timeout

00:14:47.620 show improved parent-child relationship.

00:14:50.620 And that's probably because when the child's,

00:14:52.600 you know, gentle parenting people will say,

00:14:54.800 well, I don't care if about the child's behavior

00:14:56.700 improves or not.

00:14:57.860 But it does matter because as we all know,

00:15:00.400 when your child's behavior is atrocious,

00:15:03.840 it is really hard to have a good relationship with them.

00:15:06.940 And as their behavior, you know,

00:15:09.060 we've all had our kids go through stages

00:15:10.620 and when their behavior is better,

00:15:12.320 it's so much easier to have a good relationship with them.

00:15:15.260 And the relationship is what really matters. So their behavior does. It also matters for our mental health, which I feel like nobody in the gentle parenting world is even talking about the parents. But our mental health is important, too.

00:15:29.160 Totally. And, you know, that's something that I think about all the time when I'm looking at a lot of parenting advice influencers who are telling me, who are shaming me, mostly, who are telling me I'm doing it wrong, who are being very judgy.

00:15:45.200 I it's yes the mother's mental health is never considered um the you know just ability to make

00:15:54.000 our household a pleasant place yeah is never considered and that's why I think a lot of this 0.61

00:15:59.360 is so dangerous because it is also very true that if a mother cannot function the household is not 0.85

00:16:06.660 going to run exactly and so we have to take we have to take care of ourselves like that has to 0.53

00:16:12.420 be a priority. And so many parenting advice influencers do not make that a priority.

00:16:17.480 They say, oh, no, it's they do the opposite of what I think is very good advice. It's put the

00:16:23.300 oxygen mask and put the put the oxygen mask on someone else first. Yes. Instead of putting it

00:16:30.060 on yourself first. Yes, exactly. I think a lot of the gentle parenting influencers act like

00:16:36.760 we as parents should be these people that are just perfect co-regulators that are completely

00:16:42.400 devoid of any emotions, any things that we have to do, you know, any other priorities we have,

00:16:48.900 any, you know, thoughts, feelings. We're just supposed to be just our child's perfect calm

00:16:54.100 co-regulators. And even if we could do that, which is completely impossible, first of all,

00:16:59.000 even if we could, we are setting our children up for the most unrealistic expectation of other

00:17:05.280 relationships because I can tell you none of their friends are going to do that. Their future spouse

00:17:10.160 is not going to do that. Their boss certainly isn't going to do that. No. I mean, I talk to 1.00

00:17:19.340 so many college professors these days who are now getting the first generation of kids who

00:17:25.620 really went through a lot of this kind of parenting. Yes. And they say it is a pure

00:17:29.860 dumpster fire of hell in their classrooms. These kids do not want to get anything, do not think

00:17:36.400 they deserve anything less than an A. They don't want to be critiqued or edited in their papers.

00:17:44.660 And, you know, it's just I want to raise my kids to thrive in the real world. Yes. Not in some

00:17:52.080 bubble of my household where someone is constantly regulating their emotions. Yes. And you have to

00:17:58.520 think that the ultimate goal here is not for you to effectively co-regulate their emotions because

00:18:04.300 you're not going to always be there. The ultimate goal is for us to teach our kids to do this

00:18:09.820 without them. So if you are always there co-regulating them, they're never going to learn

00:18:15.800 how to do it without you. So the goal is to take steps back as your child is able

00:18:24.000 to handle those emotions. So always being there is not even serving your kid.

00:18:30.020 so what other what other instagram myths are out there that that you that you love to debunk

00:18:38.460 um i saw one the other day that i laughed at um that i saw one that said that children never

00:18:46.480 enjoy misbehaving you know it always comes from a spot of emotional turmoil

00:18:50.860 and i was just thinking they should meet my three-year-old because he loves he loves it

00:18:56.380 Mine loves it. She just loves being back. Loves it so much. I can also tell that she's deriving so much joy from it. But there's also no more poorly behaved child than when another child is behaving well. Because she wants attention. She's just smirking at me beneath her screams like, oh, now you're here.

00:19:25.140 Yes. And it doesn't mean, you know, I feel like I see this stuff on social media all the time, that when your child misbehaves, that means there's a problem with the parent-child connection. That is not true. First of all, all children misbehave. And, you know, in extreme cases, there could be, you know, a problem with the parent-child relationship where they have no other way of getting attention.

00:19:50.660 But in most cases, pushing limits is just what kids do.

00:19:56.000 You know, my three-year-old just this morning grabbed a candy cane off his sister's gingerbread

00:20:00.360 house and like ran around laughing while she was screaming.

00:20:02.900 It's like he just thought that was funny.

00:20:05.220 He wasn't, there was no emotional turmoil going in inside.

00:20:09.740 He was very happy.

00:20:11.980 Sometimes children just do these things and that's part of being a child and it doesn't

00:20:17.140 mean that there's any problem with the parent child relationship or that you need to blame

00:20:22.260 yourself in any way that you're doing anything wrong exactly exactly kids are just kids yeah

00:20:28.340 you know they're just and i think we need to let them be kids more um i mean i hate to keep going

00:20:35.560 back to my idea of parenting the 80s because there are a lot of things my parents messed up

00:20:39.880 in particular but I do think that we were just given more space for our own exploration and

00:20:49.380 psychological development and dealing with our own feelings instead of someone constantly being like

00:20:55.000 but but what is it that you feel right now because that person isn't going to be there all the time

00:21:01.280 yes yes and you know if your child goes to school if they spend any time away from you like they

00:21:07.520 need to be able to learn how to regulate themselves. And as we're thinking about them

00:21:15.000 becoming adults, they need to more and more gain those skills or they will not be able to function

00:21:20.940 as adults. Exactly. Exactly. What else? Is there anything else? I mean, I just want to have you

00:21:27.300 on forever and ever. There's so much. Another one I see all the time is that rewards are bad

00:21:34.320 because they decrease your child's intrinsic motivation so most gentle parenting influencers

00:21:41.260 would say even with potty training you know even with you know a lot of these typical things that

00:21:48.180 we would use rewards for um that are the average parent would use rewards for that rewards will

00:21:54.900 decrease intrinsic motivation but what the research finds is that rewards only decrease

00:22:01.180 intrinsic motivation if it is something your child is already motivated to do. So for example,

00:22:06.820 if your child loves reading, they're just so into it and they are a little bookworm who's reading

00:22:11.700 all the time, you don't want to reward that because it's already, I mean, you wouldn't want

00:22:17.360 to be like, okay, so every hour you read, you get a dollar because that's something they already

00:22:22.380 love. But most of the time we aren't rewarding kids for what they're intrinsically motivated

00:22:27.200 for. We're rewarding them for things that they do not want to do, like cleaning their room or

00:22:32.780 getting out the door on time. Like 99% of kids are not intrinsically motivated to leave for school

00:22:38.980 on time. They don't care when they leave for school. Oh, it's so funny that you mentioned

00:22:42.540 the school thing because I saw one parenting advice account yesterday that said the reason

00:22:48.700 your kid, and again, these statements are so declarative, right? It said the reason your kid

00:22:54.220 is fighting or yelling when they say they don't want to go to school it's because they have

00:23:00.940 attachment anxiety i don't want to leave you and i'm like i know my kid and like maybe sometimes

00:23:07.160 that's true but most of the time they just want to play with their toys longer it's got nothing

00:23:13.560 to do with me yes yes they they have no motivation to get out the door at exactly 8 a.m whereas

00:23:22.100 we as adults have huge motivation. So when, so research finds that when you give rewards to

00:23:29.400 children for something they are not intrinsically motivated to do, it gets them to do it, first of

00:23:35.520 all, which is huge. And second of all, it actually increases their intrinsic motivation to do it. So

00:23:41.820 it makes them more likely to do it even when the rewards go away. So it's setting up habits for

00:23:48.060 your children that will serve them in the future. So there is nothing wrong with using rewards.

00:23:53.900 I would be careful about using rewards for activities that your child is already intrinsically

00:23:59.360 motivated to do, but I don't see a reason why you need to use rewards for those activities

00:24:04.320 because they're already doing them. But there's nothing wrong with setting up reward systems for

00:24:09.780 your kids. Well, and I think about it like this, you know, if people are saying, oh, if you give

00:24:16.500 them a reward now. You'll have to give them a reward all the time. My two kids poop all the

00:24:20.800 time now. They poop constantly in the potty and don't demand an M&M. That's a great example. Yes,

00:24:27.600 I know very few like school age kids even who need an M&M every time they go to the potty.

00:24:33.860 No, they sure don't. Yeah, they sure don't. Exactly. Exactly. All right. What else? What

00:24:39.060 else? So another one is there is an idea that we talk about a psychologist and in the research

00:24:46.220 called planned ignoring.

00:24:48.440 And this is the idea that if there are minor behaviors

00:24:52.100 that, you know, like sibling fighting, whining, fussing,

00:24:57.960 things like that, that you want to go away,

00:25:01.660 it is okay to just ignore them.

00:25:05.540 You know, the gentle parenting influencers would say,

00:25:08.680 you know, you should never ignore a child.

00:25:11.060 All behavior is a bid for attachment.

00:25:14.540 but sometimes we get into these bad cycles where we are giving more attention to the negative

00:25:20.400 behaviors and the positive behaviors so think about like you know your kids are in the other

00:25:24.960 room playing and they're playing quietly and nice and you're like oh this is great like i'm gonna go

00:25:29.840 get some emails sent i'm gonna start dinner and then all of a sudden they start fighting and you

00:25:34.700 run in there immediately and you're like what's going on what happened and we get into these

00:25:40.080 patterns where we pay more attention to the negative behaviors because that's what draws us

00:25:44.640 in and less attention to the positive behavior. So what you want to do as a parent is, you know,

00:25:50.420 make an effort to pay attention as much as possible to the positive behaviors and ignore

00:25:55.980 some of these more minor behaviors that come up because that will help the positive behaviors

00:26:03.280 to become more frequent um so our attention is such a powerful motivator for kids so

00:26:09.320 you can use that to your advantage i love that idea and i think it's true too i mean my kids

00:26:17.280 again i don't i don't feel like i have to hover over them especially with you know the brother

00:26:23.260 sister dynamic and relationship hover over them with every every kerfuffle that they have right

00:26:31.060 this is the time where they are learning how to interact with other human beings.

00:26:37.340 And if I'm moderating that all the time, I feel like I'm not giving them that brain space to do

00:26:44.920 that. Exactly. Exactly. Yes. You want to give children the chance to work things out on their

00:26:52.200 own and you don't want to be there every single time something comes up. Because like I said

00:26:58.820 before. Like you're not going to always be there. I have two more. I have two more questions for

00:27:02.680 you. One of them is directly related to the holiday season. I'm seeing so much advice on

00:27:07.880 what to do when your child is ungrateful about a gift. I had this happen last year. One of my kids

00:27:14.460 was given a book on spiders by my mother. They had requested a book on spiders, but they didn't

00:27:20.180 remember doing that. And they were a massive jerk about it. I didn't ask for this. Why would you 0.99

00:27:26.080 even think about getting me this. And it was terrible. And she felt so bad. And a lot of the

00:27:32.420 parenting advice influencers say that we should be managing the kid's disappointment, whereas I'm

00:27:38.800 like, no, I'm like, the kid should learn to treat other people and gifting with respect. Is there

00:27:44.420 any research on this? Yes. So there is some research. So first of all, I want to say that

00:27:49.760 ingratitude is completely normal for young children. And a lot of this has to do with the

00:27:55.680 fact that they, you know, their brains haven't developed the ability to take somebody else's

00:28:00.300 perspective. So they're not trying to hurt the gift giver. You know, they just don't understand

00:28:05.840 that like, you know, grandma thought that was something they might be into. So just knowing

00:28:11.840 that it's developmentally normal in kids, I think can really help and, you know, realize that it

00:28:17.840 doesn't mean that you're raising a spoiled brat. What I would say, there's a really interesting

00:28:24.460 research study that looked at you know how parents respond and they found that you know

00:28:31.220 punishing ingratitude or you know giving into the demands blaming yourself all the things that like

00:28:38.820 these negative things that we typically do in the moment of ingratitude actually doesn't really work

00:28:45.040 but what they found was effective was allowing so when when the parents were distressed in the

00:28:52.400 moment of ingratitude that actually led to more gratitude. So it's okay to show your child and

00:28:58.880 even tell your child that, like, that made you feel sad or frustrated or whatever it was when

00:29:04.900 they did that way, when, you know, grandma gave him a gift and they screamed about it or whatever

00:29:10.540 happened. So allowing yourself to be distressed about it and making sure also that you recognize

00:29:18.020 the moments they are grateful, you know, assuming showing gratitude is an important value for you,

00:29:24.220 making sure you are watching for those moments and pointing them out and being like, wow,

00:29:29.280 that was really nice when you said thank you and, you know, or however you express your

00:29:35.060 gratitude, making sure you praise that and notice those moments rather than focusing just on the

00:29:40.960 moments they're ungrateful. I love that. I love that. Yeah, we recently got one of them,

00:29:46.720 the one that can write thank you cards with their name on it and they just love that right because

00:29:53.260 it feels so special and so they've they've recently started initiating writing thank you

00:29:58.760 cards but mostly because they know we're excited about it and they see us write thank you cards so

00:30:04.640 it is a lot of modeling and and also reminding them oh this made me feel bad or this made grandma

00:30:11.360 feel bad and you don't want grandma to feel bad you love grandma i've also tried to say hey you

00:30:16.440 You know, gift-giving is not necessarily about you.

00:30:19.200 It is about the person giving you the gift and just making them feel good about it.

00:30:23.500 We want to make other people feel good.

00:30:25.000 You know, I've seen gentle parenting influencers say you should never tell your child to say thank you.

00:30:30.140 If you just model it, they will eventually catch on to that.

00:30:34.520 It's not true. 1.00

00:30:35.980 I'm going to call the asshole that. 1.00

00:30:38.380 It's a dirty lie. 1.00

00:30:39.540 I think there's a chance maybe if you keep modeling eventually years and years and years down the road, maybe they will.

00:30:46.040 I don't know. But if something is really important to you, there is nothing wrong with, you know,

00:30:52.420 we know effective ways of teaching children skills and modeling is an effective way,

00:30:57.520 but also prompting is an effective way. So reminding them to say thank you to, you know,

00:31:04.080 I wouldn't, you don't have to shame them when they don't say thank you, but just reminding

00:31:10.080 them to say thank you, making sure, you know, you, you reward it, praise, praise it when they do say

00:31:16.880 thank you. If this is something that's an important value to your family, I know it is for mine

00:31:22.000 saying please and thank you. So there's nothing wrong with, you know, telling your child to say

00:31:27.580 thank you. I, it's, it seems my, my mom who's, you know, a parent of the eighties always thinks

00:31:32.700 so crazy when I tell her things like, oh, people are saying now that you shouldn't ever tell your

00:31:37.880 kids to say thank you. She's like, what? She's like, that's crazy pants. That is fall on crazy

00:31:43.400 bananas pants, my friends. But there is absolutely nothing wrong with telling your children to say

00:31:48.220 thank you and telling them to say I'm sorry, which is a whole nother topic. You know, it's okay to

00:31:52.440 remind your kids because they're just little people who are just still figuring out what the

00:31:57.780 social rules are. And there's nothing wrong with helping to teach them so that they can be more

00:32:03.060 successful when they are away from you socially. And we want to set them up for success. That's

00:32:08.900 the thing. That's the thing. We're going to take one more quick break here, and then we will be

00:32:13.280 right back for a final question and a wrap up.

00:32:16.100 so you do debunk a lot of these influencing myths you debunk them with research

00:32:35.120 have you gotten pushback for that yes i have gotten a lot of pushback it's i think the

00:32:41.800 putting the research out there helps it me to not get as much criticism as if I were just

00:32:48.740 expressing my own personal opinion. But there's a lot of people who will say they still think that,

00:32:55.740 you know, timeout, for example, they can't see how that's not harmful for a child. And what I

00:33:02.080 say to them is, if it feels harmful to you, then you are absolutely right in not choosing that for

00:33:08.960 your family. If sleep training feels wrong to you, you are absolutely right in not using that.

00:33:15.080 You know, it might be harmful for your child. All the research shows us is what is true for

00:33:22.320 the average child. And research is limited. Like I said, it's very limited. We don't really know.

00:33:27.220 So if any of these things that I've been talking about feel wrong to you and you're like,

00:33:31.100 I just don't feel right about putting my child in timeout, then don't do it. There's absolutely

00:33:36.380 no reason you should. There's no research showing if you don't use timeout or you don't use

00:33:41.940 consequences that you're creating some sort of monster, you know. You have to parent in the way

00:33:48.840 that feels right to you. I just want to make sure that parents know that there are other research

00:33:54.020 back strategies. So if gentle parenting is working for you, like that is so wonderful

00:34:00.280 and you should run with it and don't change anything.

00:34:03.460 But if it's not working,

00:34:05.040 I just really don't want parents to feel like they are failures

00:34:08.380 or to feel shame about them.

00:34:11.760 No, no, no, no.

00:34:12.880 There's enough.

00:34:14.420 Parenting is hard enough, is the thing.

00:34:17.320 Juggling all of the things that we have to juggle,

00:34:20.600 all of the multitasking that we have to do,

00:34:23.760 we just don't,

00:34:24.620 I just don't think that any of these instructions

00:34:26.980 are particularly helpful.

00:34:29.000 do you think that there should be some kind of rules and regulations about who can give this

00:34:34.940 kind of advice? I mean, some way of showing, hey, these are my certifications. I have actual

00:34:41.220 education in this. I think it's getting more out of control than ever before. The coaching

00:34:46.480 on social media, it's essentially MLMs of coaching of different sorts. It's everything

00:34:54.540 from parent coaching to executive coaching, but especially the parenting coaching. And there's

00:35:00.480 no qualification. Yes. When I first got on social media, I had never even heard of a parent coach.

00:35:07.740 You know, that's not something as psychologists we would ever refer parents to. And I remember

00:35:13.080 looking it up and being shocked that you can call yourself a parenting coach with absolutely no

00:35:18.120 qualifications. There's nothing you have to do. You can just create an account and you're a

00:35:22.100 coach. Whereas to call yourself a psychologist, like legally, it requires, you know, at least

00:35:28.740 six years of training, sometimes more, you know, there's like a lot, you have a lot of hoops you're

00:35:35.420 jumping through. And, and same with therapists have to go through who have our master's level

00:35:41.280 have to go through a similar certification process, but calling yourself a coach, anybody

00:35:46.340 can do that. And Instagram, social media is the wild west. There are no rules. You can get on

00:35:52.700 Instagram and social media, say whatever you want about parenting, and nobody's going to stop you.

00:35:58.780 And the things that are more extreme are going to get more engagement. The things that make

00:36:04.040 parents feel bad are when they're going to feel like, oh, I need to buy this person's course

00:36:09.000 because I feel like I'm doing it all wrong. If you're on social media saying like, you're doing

00:36:14.400 a great job like nobody's gonna buy your course because no no great yeah yeah no i mean that's

00:36:21.920 and that's the thing that i think that the shame is being compounded because shame motivates you

00:36:28.140 to buy things um and so yeah and a lot of these influencers i'm not saying they're you know

00:36:35.200 necessarily evil or anything but they've realized what what works and so it is shame it is extremes

00:36:43.560 to say things like, you should never do this. You are damaging your child. Those kinds of

00:36:51.220 dog whistles, those kinds of warnings are what get people to buy things. And I just, you know,

00:36:59.740 I really respect your account because you don't do those kinds of things. And I want more parents

00:37:05.180 to look out for those moments when they're experiencing that shame and to think about

00:37:12.200 why this person is trying to cause you shame exactly exactly and remember and remembering

00:37:19.020 that we don't have any research showing that there is only one way to parent you know these

00:37:25.400 um all these different parenting things that are out there like gentle parenting attachment

00:37:29.720 parenting you know they these aren't religious you know you don't have to like prescribe to

00:37:35.960 everything they say you can kind of just take what you want and leave the rest and um you know

00:37:41.580 it's not as black and white as it appears to be on social media exactly exactly yeah no that's such

00:37:49.500 that's such good advice to to leave with before we go uh and you've done you've done an amazing

00:37:55.420 job today by the way doing an interview with a three-month-old baby there you are just killing

00:38:00.720 it uh who do you follow on social media what does your feed look like um well honestly i follow all

00:38:08.100 these gentle parenting influencers as well, because I think it's important to call out when

00:38:15.080 I see something that I think is wrong. I did a post-it today about somebody who was saying that

00:38:22.040 screen time harms baby's brains, which we don't have any evidence for. And the people who I really

00:38:29.540 like are people who take a research-backed approach, like Emily Oster, of course, is somebody

00:38:37.480 who I love because she takes that research-backed approach. And I try to, you know, although I am

00:38:47.860 following a lot of these gentle parenting influencers, I have to check myself. A lot of

00:38:52.840 times I'll see something and it makes me feel bad. And then I'm like, well, wait, I have to be like,

00:38:58.160 no, no, no, we don't have any research for this. A lot of the things that get me are when people

00:39:03.340 say things that, like, a child's behavior is a reflection on the parent-child connection.

00:39:09.660 Because I have, well, three at least, maybe four TBD-spirited kids who have a lot of big

00:39:17.060 behaviors.

00:39:18.420 So many.

00:39:19.400 So many, my friends.

00:39:21.080 And I think it's so easy to feel bad, even if there was no social media, to feel bad

00:39:28.560 about those behaviors.

00:39:29.300 but when accounts are saying things like you know your child's misbehavior is a reflection on you

00:39:35.900 as a parent it makes you feel a little worse so i just think even if you do continue to follow

00:39:41.520 these accounts to just check yourself and remind yourself that we have absolutely no research

00:39:47.040 and no psychologists would say that a child's behavior reflects on parent no and you know i

00:39:55.260 also have i have two spirited kids uh it remains to be seen what the third one's like so she's

00:40:01.440 pretty she's pretty chill okay but i do but i do my i will tell you my most chill friend

00:40:06.360 and she will say this too she is super chill her husband's super chill they're awesome parents

00:40:11.620 their kids are insane they're crazy and it's no reflection on them kids are kids yeah you know

00:40:22.300 Exactly. Well, now because you brought it up, I have to ask about the screen time. Is screen time 0.66

00:40:26.720 wrecking my kid's brain? Definitely not. So, you know, again, the research is limited, but what we

00:40:32.980 know is that, you know, we have no evidence that screen time is wrecking your kid's brain. We do

00:40:39.540 know that real life social interaction is probably better for your child's development than screen

00:40:46.140 time. So if you're in the mental space where you can provide, you know, a high quality interaction

00:40:53.000 for your child over screen time, like that's great. But if you are in the mental space,

00:40:58.400 like you have, or you aren't in the mental space where you have other things going on,

00:41:03.800 you need a break, you want to provide screen time for your kids, there's absolutely nothing

00:41:08.640 wrong with that. And we have no evidence that that is going to have a negative impact on your

00:41:14.460 child in the long run. I love that. I love knowing that. Mostly because while I've been

00:41:20.540 hanging out with the baby in the morning, I've been catching up on the new series of Fatal

00:41:24.920 Attraction. And it's been really, really good. Really good. It's got Pacey in it from Dawson's

00:41:30.120 Creek. Oh, love that. Right? Yeah. I'm just, you know, really, really, really enjoying that. And

00:41:35.380 I'm playing peekaboo with her. And I'm also binge watching television. So, you know. And if that

00:41:40.920 improves your mental health and that is what is better for your child than it totally turning off

00:41:47.260 the screens and making sure they never see a screen for the first year you need to do it god

00:41:52.340 it was so funny i was such a i was such a freak with my first child i really was i was like we

00:41:56.780 all were because because all because all kids grab the phone all the time right yeah i'm like oh my

00:42:01.720 god don't let him see the light of the phones never or like we would be watching like a football

00:42:08.580 game or something in a bar. And I'm like, no, turn him away. Really? Well, that's actually what I

00:42:15.660 commented on this morning. It was an account showing a pack for if you want to turn on the

00:42:21.260 TV with the baby. And they showed just putting a blanket over the baby's play mat. But we don't

00:42:26.800 have any research that looking at the TV is worse than staring at a white blanket. In fact, I would

00:42:33.220 argue that it's better for your child and their brain development to not have the white blanket

00:42:39.880 and be looking at the TV, but also like looking around the room and seeing your face. And

00:42:44.260 I would not advise the white blanket. Why don't you smother your baby so they can't see the TV?

00:42:50.580 Exactly. Throw a blanket over their head so they can't see the TV.

00:42:54.740 I know. It's just gotten so extreme. And we have no, you know, there's all these accounts saying

00:43:03.900 that TV is overstimulating for babies and young kids. But I would actually argue that it's

00:43:08.880 under stimulating because real life interaction is what is stimulating for kids and where TV just

00:43:17.380 is not as stimulating. And it doesn't mean that it's hurting their brain. It only means that

00:43:23.000 They're probably not learning as much as they would in a real-life interaction, which isn't necessarily harmful.

00:43:30.360 No.

00:43:30.880 No, it's just not as good.

00:43:32.060 Yeah.

00:43:32.300 And when you have the gas in the tank to do the real-life interactions, also with third baby, I mean, that baby is getting so much interaction from the bigs.

00:43:40.580 Yes, so much interaction.

00:43:41.700 I think that she's probably happy for some chill time.

00:43:45.960 She's like, thank goodness. 0.98

00:43:47.980 She's like, from the moment I wake up, someone wants to play fucking peekaboo with me, and I'm done. 0.92

00:43:52.200 yeah so true done with the peekaboo yeah yeah amazing tell people where they can find you 0.89

00:43:58.500 and find all of your wonderful advice so i am my website is parenting translator.org

00:44:04.580 i am and i'm on instagram on tiktok as parenting translator and i also have a

00:44:09.760 sub stack which is parenting translator.substack.com that is all i have for you today friends

00:44:17.080 That's it.

00:44:17.900 I don't know about you, but I actually feel a lot smarter.

00:44:21.180 I do.

00:44:21.660 I feel really, really good.

00:44:23.140 I feel very equipped to go scroll the Instagram and just unfollow a bunch of accounts that 0.99

00:44:29.340 have been spewing, spewing a lot of bullshit research at me. 0.98

00:44:33.180 And that feels nice. 0.99

00:44:36.080 I feel lighter.

00:44:37.560 And I wasn't kidding.

00:44:38.760 I really have been binge watching the new Fatal Attraction.

00:44:41.260 And it is good.

00:44:42.020 Not like good TV, but good bad TV in the way that I think you just need.

00:44:46.100 in December. This is how I want to close out the year. Bad TV on my couch with a lot of cheese.

00:44:53.500 Thank you for being here. I appreciate you so much. Go leave us a review if you like us. The

00:44:58.760 algorithm likes that. Also, you can subscribe to Over the Influence, the substack, where we will

00:45:04.080 have a whole transcript of this interview and a bunch of bonus content and some really fun stuff.

00:45:09.680 Now, go unplug and have a great day. You deserve it.

00:45:16.100 Thank you.

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - December 08, 2023

Debunking the Lies of Parenting Influencers

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