Ep: 112: How to Raise Strong Kids in a World Designed to Make Them Soft

I feel like that makes you sound-

I'll take it

... like you're really good at bullying.

But hey.

Yeah, man.

So l- listen, here's my first question.

Okay.

Every dad, right, every dad wants to protect his kids.

Mm-hmm.

I don't know any dad who's like, "Meh, I don't really wanna protect my kids." [laughs]

Right.

But there's a tension here, man, because here's, here's where my mind goes.

If I protect my kid from every person, every failure, every uncomfortable experience, I'm, I may actually be preventing them from developing resilience.

Like, I can't, I can't protect, I can't shield them, right?

No.

So where's the line between protecting your, our kids-

Mm-hmm

... protecting our kids and preparing them? You know what I mean? Like, how do you-

Right

... how do you manage that tension?

So th- I, I think about, like, if my kid comes home saying, "Hey, so-and-so picked on me," um, the first thing I wanna do is gather information, talk to my kid about their experience before I jump in going all papa bear.

Because when we jump in to try and solve our kids' problems for them, the message we're sending to them, "I don't believe in you.

I don't think you can handle this on your own, and so I think I need to do it myself." And so we really need to be careful when we jump in and save kids from their problems because we want them to know that we believe in them.

And so if they come to us saying, like, complaining about a situation in their life, they're usually complaining it to us because they want some sort of advice.

They want some sort of wisdom, or they just want to, a sounding board to bounce it off.