ļ»æEpisode 230
Title: Stop Putting Leashes On Your Kids
Host: Dr. Nicole Rivera & Dr. Nick Carruthers
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Transcription:
Dr. Nicole (00:01.078)
"So this is gonna be a good one, guys. Dr. Nick and I might get into an argument on this podcast, and we'll see what happens.
Dr. Nick (00:09.138)
I need notes, though. You just threw this at me, and I'm like, I don't remember the...
Dr. Nicole (00:11.81)
That's the whole point. So there was a video that I sent to him, but Nick has lost his phone for the 78th time in his life. So he did not see it. I just shared it with him, and I said, you know, do you want to expand on this in a podcast? Because I thought it was kind of interesting, and it was an individual, and he was...
Dr. Nick (00:23.103)
I donated it to Germany.
Dr. Nicole (00:40.326)
He was giving a talk, and they took a snippet from his talk, and he was explaining his philosophy on parenting and he stated that from zero to five years old is when you should be disciplining, five years old to 12 years old is when you should be training, 12 years old to 18 years old is when you should be coaching. And then 18 years old and above is when you can be their friend. And I thought it was interesting. I can't say that I a hundred percent agreed with it. As I said this to Dr. Nick, he says, I disagree with all of it.
Dr. Nick (01:26.771)
I don't get that reactive very often, but yeah, I just kind of said that was stupid, you know?
Dr. Nicole (01:33.737)
So I'm very excited to see what unfolds here, guys. Go ahead. Where we go?
Dr. Nick (01:40.466)
Well, let's get at it, you know. From a neurology standpoint, from the age of zero to about five-ish, the whole brain is in Delta. So it's pretty much when you think about it, it's just a sponge. It's just taking in information, learning how to survive on its own. And then from five to six, six to seven, then the brain waves get a little higher. And then eventually as we get older, you know, then we're just in a stress state all the time. So unless you live in Italy, drinking local wine for 10 euros, living your best life. Yeah. Otherwise, you're just stressed. So the reason I said that was stupid, um, is because if you're going to put the majority of your focus, disciplining from zero to five, it like discipline. What I thought of looking at neurology, that should be when they're older.
Dr. Nicole (02:18.071)
Unless you live in Italy and then you're good.
Dr. Nick (02:43.998)
Because discipline should be a measurement of accountability. If somebody's not being accountable, that's when we hold discipline. Like you shouldn't discipline as a way of teaching. Like that's just, that's not how. That's not an intelligent way to evolve any form of life. Honestly, it's a way to do it, but you know, looking through a scientific means and neurology, it's, it's not the most intelligent and efficient way. So out of the things that were list out of everything that was listed there, the coaching that should be the primary focus from that zero to five age.
Dr. Nicole (03:23.934)
You can tell me if you feel differently, but I feel like essentially the way that I'm thinking about this is that verbiage is really important. And I don't think that people always understand how verbiage can influence. And the idea of discipline, essentially some people might think discipline and accountability are the same thing, but obviously, discipline has a negative connotation around it and accountability has more of a mentorship, like a little bit more positive of a spin on it. So I think it's very, very important for us to get this right when it comes to how we are helping our kids to grow and develop, because even with the idea of training, you train a dog, like, are we training? Or are we teaching? Are we educating a child in those earlier years? And then...
Dr. Nick (04:30.17)
I mean, there are some parents out there with leashes for their kids, so that might be a training stage for them.
Dr. Nicole (04:35.83)
Oh
Dr. Nick (04:36.79)
This is where we're at. Sometimes I lose faith in humanity. I'm not gonna lie. Like sometimes I look out there and I'm like, what the heck? Like we've had thousands of years, what happened? Like, this is where we're at. We couldn't do better. We have leashes for our children. This is, yeah. Yeah. This is, yeah. Discipline is a feedback mechanism to hold somebody accountable. You know,
Dr. Nicole (04:39.126)
Oh my god.
Dr. Nicole (04:53.008)
Oh my god, I'm literally sweating.
Dr. Nicole (05:00.128)
Get back on track.
Dr. Nick (05:06.078)
We always talk about you should run your family like you run a business, intelligently. And we should have a system and we should have everybody working together to grow together. If people aren't working together, then they're going to grow apart. And that's when we experienced the symptoms of chaos and pain and fighting arguments because we're not on the same page. And that same page is that it's a win-win relationship, that there's not a dictatorship. And that's when you look at businesses, those are the worst businesses that there's a leader, a dictator. And then the discipline is if you do or don't do where the best businesses is literally a balance of centralized and decentralized system. So the centralized is the dictatorship, the decentralized is, Hey, I trust you. And you've been trained quote unquote, that, you know, your job, you know, your place and the team, and you can do your job, however, you want to do that serves you because you have a different personal hierarchy of values than me. And because we have a different set of personal values, we, we need to do things differently because how I do something is going to best serve me and how you do something needs to be in a way that's congruent with best serving you just as long as the job gets done, then it's best serving the team. So when we look at training, you know, training, we can train intelligently, but we need to train based on the individual's values. What's most important to them? and help them grow those traits.
Dr. Nicole (06:39.874)
So I want to take the lens and I want to widen the lens for the audience right now because as we're talking about this, it's very funny because one of the podcasts I wanted to do today was talking about hiring for helping your family and how that also correlates to hiring if you're an entrepreneur. And Nick was like, I'm not interested in talking about that. So I was like, I'll do it myself later. But ironically, where we're going with this is actually very synonymous with this concept. And the reason why I'm saying that is because when we talk about this idea of training and teaching a young child, let's say between the ages of zero and seven, infancy to seven, and we are remolding this child. The main thing that we're really doing is we're being a leader. We're being a leader to this young individual who is very suggestible, very influenceable because they're in that, that Delta brainwave. So what we do and what we don't do makes a really big difference. The people that are out there that think that their kid is just like this a little bowl of mush that doesn't know what's going on. Your kid knows everything that's going on. Not only can your kid hear it, they can see it, they can feel it, they are so much more tapped into energy and emotions than any of us are because we've put a big guard up as we've gotten burned and have gotten older. We created a protective mechanism. Your kids don't have that yet. Your infants don't have that yet. So they are so... Dr. Nick (08:31.366)
And this, and this is actually proven through NASA, uh, cause NASA did a study on how to find, um, geniuses because they wanted to hire geniuses, you know, for their company and literally from, they put together this test, uh, for people, kids starting with kids, uh, to be all the way through adults to be able to take. And it's like, it wasn't so much the answers, but the way they figured out the answers is what they figured out. One of the biggest, most important things for a genius mindset.
Dr. Nicole (08:42.059)
This is huge.
Dr. Nick (09:01.542)
And when they gave this, uh, to young children under the age of five, it was like 98% of kids were geniuses and they were like, didn't expect that to kind of blown away. And then they did it five years later and I'm not a hundred percent sure on the percentage, but it dropped down to like slow seventies and they weren't overly surprised. And then they did another five years and it went down to like 30% and another five years. Boom. It was less than 5%. So it shows that We're all born geniuses. It's we're taught how to not be a genius. And when you, when you, when you literally pause and think about that, it means we're teaching wrong. It means the discipline, the training, the coaching, the friend it's wrong. And if we don't change how we're raising our children, like when you look at evolution, like, like it was a joke, but like, how'd we get here? It's like, Well, let's not continue doing the same thing because that's insanity. And we're, we're not allowing us to continue to be the genius that we are. And that's the messed-up part of that life is that we're all boring geniuses and then we grow out of it.
Dr. Nicole (10:15.906)
But the thing is for people is that most people are like, okay, I kind of get what you're saying here, but I don't even know where to begin because I don't know what I'm doing wrong. And that's something that I really want to drive home. There is no right or wrong. And so this concept of what this other person online was saying is that, you know, like we have to discipline our kids between the ages of zero and five. It's essentially a different way of saying we're teaching them right and wrong. But a lot of what we're teaching of the right and wrong is influenced by our religion, our culture, our society, our neighborhood, our mentors, our professors, our media. And we get very detracted from what is important to our family. So what I challenge you to think about is that you need to think about one, what is your desired outcome for your child? Meaning... is the desired outcome that they are going to be independent. They're gonna be sovereign. They're gonna be free. They're gonna stand for what they believe in. They're going to have lots of friends and a huge network. Like, what is the desired outcome? Because the desired outcome is a different way of saying, what are the values at the core of your family? Because like for us, do I want you to be
Dr. Nick (11:37.194)
Well, I'm gonna challenge that quickly.
Dr. Nicole (11:40.874)
Okay, go ahead.
Dr. Nick (11:43.162)
Because the only way you could achieve that is by messing them up so much that they have the opposite of that, that creates the void that makes them want to value that to be honest, it's like, we can never dictate what we want our children to have, cause those are all halves. We, we were not in control of that. And, and that's like, when you look at society right now, you were correct that we're going to probably get into some friendly arguments. Um, when you look at society right now,
Dr. Nicole (11:59.244)
Yeah.
Dr. Nick (12:11.45)
And going back to that NASA study, what's the biggest thing that's changed from zero to five, five to 10, 10 to 15, 20 is that they have been in a system that's taught them how not to think.
Dr. Nicole (12:27.667)
Yeah.
Dr. Nick (12:29.854)
When you're zero to five, they're taken. Don't get me wrong. This is partly because of the neuroscience of just where the brain's at in that stage is that they're taking in everything. They're consuming everything through every sense like Nicole was saying. And then, you know, we have our strengths, but some people are more auditory, something more visual, something more kinesthetic, and we lean more on that. But it's also, we're in a system. That is designed that we primarily only teach through one, maybe two of those systems. So then we're, we're not allowing, the children to learn and actually intake the amount of energy and information. So we're, we're cutting off the amount of information they can have by the way we teach them. And, and then, so pretty much the whole, this whole journey is we, we stop them from learning how to think, from learning how to ask questions. Like help them learn how to think, learn how to ask questions, learn how to serve them, learn how to serve themselves, learn how to make decisions on what's going to best serve themselves in a way that's also congruent and equal serving humanity because that's a balance and that balance creates love and that love is what heals both themselves and humanity in that exact same moment. So if, if we want to continue this journey, we're
Dr. Nicole (13:32.022)
Be a leader.
Dr. Nick (13:53.662)
going to go to a bigger breakdown until we experience enough pain in society that we can actually say like, Hey, the system's process isn't working. Or we can have foresight and say, we don't have to experience this much pain, but guess what we have to stop using this system because the system isn't allowing our children to think for themselves because they learn a test. They get graded. They're told they're smarter. They're dumb. based on what they memorized for a test that they never actually figured out how to use for themselves. All they did was learn something to take a test. That was for the industrial revolution. Take some orders. Can you take an order? How good are you at taking an order? Can you follow the order? We're over that. We're done with that. We're beyond that. That didn't serve us.
Dr. Nicole (14:34.667)
Yeah.
Dr. Nicole (14:45.494)
I think the sad part is that a lot of kids that do think outside the box, they do challenge the status quo, which is... Well, they not only do poorly in school because it's not set up for that but they also get disciplined and reprimanded on a consistent basis. You know, I think about... I don't know who I was having this conversation with the other day, but, you know, I had a friend who stands out to me who in school, he was not a good test taker. He was just...
Dr. Nick (14:51.754)
They do poorly in school.
Dr. Nicole (15:14.774)
He was not an auditory learner, which is the foundation of the way school is set up, is you're talked at, and you're expected to understand and retain. And he has excelled through the years I've known him in so many things that he was more kinesthetic from being like an amazing surfer to an amazing snowboarder. But really at the end of the day is that he had a special aid in school and he was told that he was just not smart and maybe college wasn't the thing for him. And I find it so interesting that this is an individual that was talked down to and was told that he didn't have a bright future. And he is one of the individuals that carries a set of skills that the majority of humanity doesn't. He can talk to anyone. He can tell stories. He's an amazing public speaker. And think about if he had the ability for someone to lead him to be able to leverage that skill set and to be able to know how to use it. And I think that's what I was trying to say before is that this is about leading our children no matter if they're an infant or two years old or five years old, but. I find that the best leaders, they also are making leadership decisions based on a set of core values. And those core values for a company, there's a set of core values that allow that company to know why they're unique. And they know it sets an expectation for how everybody shows up.
Dr. Nicole (17:01.846)
challenging the status quo or speaking up or challenging things through critical thinking. And that's going to set that company apart. And it's the same thing as every family is so unique and every single family, a lot of times they don't showcase that uniqueness because they don't want to stand out and they don't want to be different and they don't want other families to judge them. and we should be leading with our uniqueness and we should be leading our children based on that uniqueness. If you want your kid to be a critical thinker, then don't yell at him because you got a phone call from the teacher and said, Johnny disagreed with me today. You say, well, that's part of our family values. And he didn't agree because it didn't make sense.
Dr. Nick (17:53.53)
Hehehehe
Dr. Nicole (17:57.246)
And he was just trying, he wasn't being rude, he was just trying to open the dialogue. It's like you have your kid's back based on the set of those values.
Dr. Nick (18:07.27)
So I was looking back at the four things. So discipline, training, coaching, friend, and that leadership, that leadership is really the part of coaching that it goes with, uh, which is a necessary step at the forefront. Because when you think about it, if you're leading, you're above somebody. So you want in your family.
Dr. Nicole (18:13.582)
I'm letting my crazy dog out.
Dr. Nick (18:36.21)
You want to start out leading because zero to six, seven, like they're just learning how to live. So that's when you lead. But honestly, from that seven forward, that's, that's what I want to challenge us. That's when friendship starts because the best friend is the one that wants you to be the best version of yourself, which will call you out on your bullshit, but also give you the support. The best, your best friend in life should be your spouse. Cause your spouse is the person that you spend every single day with and they should be loving you. Love is a
Dr. Nicole (19:13.007)
Not everybody does that, it's mainly just you and I.
Dr. Nick (19:16.51)
But that's, that's going back to one of our previous podcasts is talking about living like wanting a one-sided life, you know, thinking that your spouse should always just support you. Like that's not a healthy relationship. That's not a relationship that grows. There's no growth and support. If you don't have growth occurs with challenge.
Dr. Nicole (19:32.79)
But it's the same thing with kids. It's like, you shouldn't always be supporting because that's what you see that dynamic in families all the time, good cop, bad cop. One parent overly supportive, and if they're so, so supportive, then the other parent is gonna be the ultimate challenger or the disciplinarian.
Dr. Nick (19:51.73)
And that's the balance there, but I'm just talking about the growth and the evolution of the child. Like growth occurs through a balance of support and challenge. Too much challenge, kid breaks. Too much support, no growth. And that balance from parents comes together through the parents being aligned with the family values. They're not growing the child based on their own separate values. That's like, you know, looking at a business of you have CEOs, you have executive team, you have management, if they were all disciplining based on their own personal values, it would be a chaotic environment. That's why everybody comes together and holds the accountability through the business values. Same thing. And same thing in a family, you have the family values and that's how parents come together and work together. Otherwise, if you don't have that set up, I'm going to say what I think is best for him.
Dr. Nicole (21:02.21)
So I want to be clear with the audience because you're saying, you know after seven is when you become their friend because, you know, your best friend is going to both provide you with that, that beautiful balance of support and challenge. I don't think that a lot of people have that experience. You know, a lot of times we have a friend that is always boosting us up and isn't... necessarily the relationship isn't vulnerable enough to also say, Hey, you know, you pissed me off or you're being a jerk or anything like that. So when we, you know, just to be really clear, do you feel like this is about this very strategic combination of friendship and coaching slash mentorship?
Dr. Nick (21:55.502)
No, because the mentorship's done, honestly, for the most part after age seven. Like, and I'm saying that based on neurology.
Dr. Nicole (22:04.266)
Yeah, okay.
Dr. Nick (22:05.734)
So after the age of seven, because the mentorship is that, and don't get me wrong, like they still may look up to you on things because there's still like developmental differences. But as a parent, like we, that's when we bring ourselves back into I'm not better than you there, we're in the same playing field because you have the same potential for the most part neurologically. And if we can do that. Then we can act like a friend and we can grow together. We don't have to separate ourselves and the separate in ourselves. That's that's, that's not healthy in a relationship, honestly. And it's like, uh, and I've, I've never thought about it this deep before until being on this podcast today and kind of being challenged with this question. Because before I'm like, no, it's kind of stupid to be a friend to your children. That's probably what I said without thinking about it, but taking the time to actually think about it, but that's actually, that's an ignorant statement.
Dr. Nicole (23:04.414)
Yeah. I think you're redefining what that means. I think a lot of times the idea of being a friend to your kid is like letting them get away with anything and like, oh, let them have the party at the house. And like, that's what a lot of people equate. That's why I wanted to be very clear on what we're saying is that this isn't about being super supportive and being so laid back because you're best friends with your kid.
Dr. Nick (23:05.278)
Because, well, and also, I'm.
Dr. Nicole (23:32.662)
This is about being that beautiful balance of challenge and support and being there to help them truly step into leading their own life. That's what you're talking about with the equal playing field is that I'm not your leader. You're leading your life, but I'm here for you to mentor you when you need me.
Dr. Nick (23:44.25)
100%. Well, and that's, that's.
Dr. Nick (23:56.134)
And that's why, I mean, honestly, it's like, we've never, I've never been taught how to be a good friend. I don't know about you, but nobody's like, Hey, Nick, this is how you actually become a good friend. This is how you're a great friend to somebody. Nobody ever sat me down and taught me that. And that's part of that process is saying, Hey, and we're going to do this with Q. Like, it's like, Hey, guess what?
Dr. Nicole (24:14.638)
Yeah, I know.
Dr. Nick (24:26.482)
I've been a mentor to you. Like I have grown-up conversations with him now and he's not even two yet. And he gets it because he's smart. Cause I treat him like a smart genius that he is. We haven't taught him not to be the smart genius yet. Not even yet. We're not going to. So when he gets to that age seven, that's when I'm going to start teaching him some neurology or even more actually. Cause I already talked to him about neurology. So.
Dr. Nicole (24:40.918)
Yep.
Dr. Nick (24:55.602)
When we go through, it's like, Hey, that sponge. That's changing. That's, that's pretty strong. And now, cause, the quote, who was it?
Wasn't Pythagoras might've been somebody really smart? Give me a child at the age of seven. I'll show you the man. He'll be Aristotle. I think I was. Yeah. So, and they knew it back then without having the technology to build a read brainwaves. So it just shows that at that moment, that's when we changed to being a friend and the best friend cares about growth and that's when we teach what growth is.
That's when we can, cause they're, that's when you can jump, start jumping in from the hind animalistic brain to using the executive center, you know, you look at some science and things and like, no, it doesn't, you can't really tap into that to, you know, boys until their twenties and like, no, it's that they're haven't been using it until they're in their twenties and they have the capacity to jump in that right after age seven, eight, nine, they just haven't been taught how to use their executive center. Cause that's, guess what? That's asking quality questions. Have they ever, has anybody ever taught them how to ask quality questions? No. So that part of the brain doesn't become activated. It's common sense when you think about it, but we're looking at science saying that this doesn't happen until this age. Well, why? Because of the system that's created the effects, the outcome, change the system.
You have different input, different output. Coming up fired up here.
Dr. Nicole (26:40.674)
You know, and everything we're talking about is, it's work. You know, it takes time to be able to figure out what are the values, what are your individual values? What are the values of your family? What makes your family unique? Like, what is the major, you know, priorities for your family? Being able to hold each other accountable to... the core values of the family. Like these are all things that, I don't even wanna say they take time, they take being more present. And a lot of us, especially as Americans, we are burning the candle at both ends and we're spread so damn thin and we're spending so much time thinking about the stressors of work and the stressors of life and we are not present when we're at home. And a lot of times we are looking to de-stress from our stressful lives or jobs. And so when we are home, we're putting on TV, we're eating feel-good food, we are having a drink and we're doing things to distract, disconnect, and to palliate the pain of the stress of our lives. And so when we live in that state, it's virtually impossible for you to be a leader or a mentor to your kids. And then we spend a shit ton of time and energy putting out the fires that happen by not being present and not leading our kids. So you think like, I don't have time for this. This is a lot. I don't even know where to begin. Well. you're probably then dealing with your kids retaliating, being rebellious, maybe you're spending a shit ton of money on rehabs because your kids are depressed and they went down the rabbit hole of drugs and alcohol. Like, no matter what, like you're not gonna escape spending time and energy. So you either choose to spend it being proactive or you spend it being reactive. And that is the harsh reality.
Dr. Nicole (29:01.63)
So yes, do we spend the time now shaping our kid that people might think we're crazy because he's two years old. And like, wow, you're talking to him like an adult, or like, does he even know what's going on? Yes, he does. You're in that prime time between birth to age seven. And that's kind of what we're driving home here is that is the time to bring your A-game, be your best, be the leader. be the trainer, be the coach, whatever the hell you wanna call yourself. And get clear on who you guys are as a family and what are the values that dictate how you lead your child or children.
Dr. Nick (29:45.33)
Well, I mean, our biggest thing with our rebrand is living a limitless life. And so it's like your choices, your actions, they're either setting you up to live a limitless life or they're causing you to live a limited life. And the, the awesome thing about this is that you know, we learned how to live a limitless life through being a doctor and an entrepreneur, like learning the neurology, learning how the body works, learning, learning how the mind works.
Dr. Nicole (30:10.774)
Yeah. Let's be clear. Yes, there was all of the, you know, the intellectual property, but it was, unfortunately, it was a lot of the pain, the obstacles, the being reactive, putting out fires that allowed us to gain wisdom for later would have been really fucking great if somebody actually shared that wisdom. So I didn't have to go through all of that, but hey, it's part of my journey.
Dr. Nick (30:38.198)
But I mean, that's how that's how we got all this data. You know, we had tons of clients and they were very, very complicated cases. And we learned many different disciplines and we learned the body, the mind, the spirit, it's all connected. We learned all the different systems of the business and that you can't just focus on one, you can't just focus on cash flow. You got to look at everything. You can't just be relationship-driven in business. You got to have, you know, the hierarchy of all this needs to get accomplished. Like there's. so many different things that we learned on both avenues of health and entrepreneur that
Dr. Nicole (31:12.494)
But I also think the observation with working with chronic illness and working with families was that you know, we are led to believe that illness runs in families because of genetics and family history. But really it comes down to these principles that we're talking about today, is that if you have a super stressed out parent or set of parents that are not present. They are very reactive because they're on edge, their nervous systems are taxed out. So they're disciplining and yelling more often than not. We're always focused on convenience foods because we don't have time to cook. That's not a priority. And our kids are gonna shut down. Our kids are gonna put a wall up and then they're gonna feel like they have no one to talk to. And if they have no one to talk to, they internalize everything. Or... they share it with someone else. And then it turns to how do I palliate the pain and that might turn into drugs, alcohol, sex, whatever. So, you know, we would see these, we would see illness running in a family, but it was as we educated ourselves and we started to open our eyes and look at the bigger picture, we realized that it wasn't just about. what they were eating, what they weren't eating. It wasn't just about the parasites or Lyme disease infected the family because of their lake house. There were deeper dynamics that were happening that were creating suppressed emotions that were creating illness.
So at the end of the day, it's all integrated. So on that note, of course, we always wanna give you guys solutions. We have some amazing opt-ins on our site. So we'll have a link below, but integrative. health, we have a very specific guide on how to get more clear on your values and your family's values. So check that out.
Dr. Nick (32:55.635)
Mic drop?
Dr. Nicole (33:23.094)
We do have a mini course that we created that actually allows you to get a little bit deeper of a dive on determining who you are as a family, what is your uniqueness as well as what is your family values and what is the number one priority for the next two to six months that will allow your family life to feel better, whatever that is, if it feels less busy, less chaotic, less frantic, just more present. It's an amazing, like super high level, easy to implement guide with some videos that will get you moving in the right direction, especially if you feel very inspired by what we're talking about here.
Dr. Nick (34:10.618)
No more leashes for the kids.
Dr. Nicole (34:14.19)
That's it, we're done. Bye!"
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