Transcripts For CSPAN3 Abigail 20240703

Tonights discussion with Abigail Shrier and her new book, bad therapy. The kids arent growing up. Abigail shrier has long been raising the alarm and troubling new trends. The development of our children. Her book, irreversible damage of the siren call of transgender among teenage girls. This new book, an investigation the Mental Health industry promises to be equally important to parents and to all who care about the development of the next generation. As many here know, Manhattan Institute is an organization dedicated to keeping america and its great cities, prosperous, safe and free. To our magazine city journal. And with gatherings like this, the Manhattan Institute amplifies and fearless voices like abigails that stand up to conventional wisdom, to todays most pressing challenges. We are grateful to, our supporters and friends here with us this evening for your engagement in our community and for your support that makes gatherings like this possible. I like to thank in particular Manhattan Institute trustees susie leibovitz, edelman and russell pinoy for being here with us this evening. Thank you. It is also my pleasure to welcome those of you who are new to our community, if this is your first Manhattan Institute event, i encourage you to reach out to me or to others, our team, to find out how you can get more involved. In a minute, im going hand things over to emily yoffe, whos moderator for the evening, who will be leading abigail in conversation before we open up the floor to questions from the audience. But first, let me introduce our speakers Abigail Shrier receive the Barbara Olson award for excellence in independence in journalism in 2021. Her bestselling irreversible damage the transgender seducing our daughters, was named a best book by the economist and the times of london. It has been translated into ten languages. She holds an a. B. From columbia college, where she your a jake hallett fellowship a b file from university of oxford and a j. D. From yale law school. She has written for the Manhattan Institute city journal a number of years. Emily is a Senior Editor at the free press. Prior to that, she was a contributing writer at the atlantic, where she focused on campus sexual assault, metoo and the need for due process. Before that, she was a longtime contributor slate, where she wrote on many topics as well as being their advice columnists. Dear prudence. For ten years. Please join me in giving Abigail Shrier and emily coffee. A warm welcome welcome. Thank you so much. Pleasure to be here to introduce you to abigail. I want to cover three basic things in this conversation. Okay . Okay. Now you got. Describe the problem that you write about in bad therapy. What is it . How got here. And maybe how we can get out. So what was the spark that . Started this book and tell us a couple the most surprising things discovered. Sure its. Its great to be here. You know, im crazy about city journal and the Manhattan Institute. Always a joy to write for them. And and, of course, to be here with one of my absolute heroes emily coffee. Its just a great. So thank you so book. They always sort of pair these things in the press, you know, and but the book in some ways is not very surprising. Right . The book that anything that is power ful, any intervention that is powerful all that is efficacious can help. It can also necessarily harm. Right. Thats true of any intervention. Now, how did i get to. So so thats the claim. The therapeutic interventions kids are getting. How did i get here . So with the last book, i took a look, one phenomenon going on in the Mental Health of teen obviously why they were all into girls in distress were deciding they were transgender. Im raising three kids in this generation so im concerned about they turn out and im not just as an academic, im concerned because i want to get it right. If there is such a thing you know, i dont want them to to end up like sort of the the kids, you know, some of the kids see around who are in terrible distress, who cant to function, who need Mental Health days off of work. Now, that doesnt mean that there arent people who are in profound distress and. Theres nothing, you know, look, they all the help we can give them. And frankly, theyre not getting enough. Right. So are the bipolar patients. Are this schizophrenics. My book is not about that. What im looking at is why the kid in america, part of gen z, might say when driving past their middle, oh, i cant drive past that. I have that i have ptsd. So im not ptsd. Its kind of the opposite. I think ptsd is a really severe, serious thing. And i dont think you were picked on in middle school. You have it. You know, generally speaking. But how do you know what i wanted know was i started out a question, which is how i should have answered. I started out with a question, why were the kids who had the most Mental Health intervention in the most therapy, the most psychiatric meds, the most social Emotional Learning, the coping skills, the most mindfulness. They should have been the picture Mental Health. So why were they in so much distress . See, i started by taking seriously the idea that their pain was real. I would call them snowflakes. Thats not sort of my orientation toward the rising generation. I dont think that they are. I think their distress is absolute, real. And i was very concerned to know how do they end up in such distress . Because it wasnt obvious from the outside. And the second thing i wondered was why did they seem to have no interest in growing up . Why didnt they rush to get their drivers licenses . Why . I just read or 56 of 18 to 25 year olds living with their parents and the lowest unemployment weve seen. These are very, very low unemployment. Theyre living at home. It seems because they want to or theyre at least content to with their parents. These were things we have packed ourselves to an apartment to avoid. When i was young and i think it matters. Thats the thing. I think it matters because sort of the underlying of the book is that growing is actually the cure adolescent angst. And if theyre trapped in this feeling of incapacity, theyre trapped in this feeling of distress and they they dont feel up to growing up. They may never get out of that. You open the book with a bang or of an anecdote about your 12 year old son coming from camp. I think with a stomach ache that wont clear up. So. Well, lets go see the pediatrician and what happens next kind of helps explain the thesis of your book and what you just described. So here they are. What happens tell. Sure. So its funny. I already written the book pretty much. I showed up at urgent care last summer with my son who was in terrible stomach ache and it was a sunday saw. A pediatrician was closed. So went to our local urgent care just to make sure it wasnt appendicitis because it lasted while and so they said nope, they a little quick test on him and they said no, its not. Its fine. Itll probably either be, you know, i thought maybe had a weird bug. Anyway they sent us home, but they said, before you go, its just dehydration. Have him drink. But before you go, wed like to do our Mental Health screener. So were going to ask you to leave. And i had already written this book and yet i stood up to leave. And then i thought, why am i leaving . Hold on. And i sat back down and i said, could i please see your Mental Health screener. And the man looked shocked because most dont ask to see it. By the way, i almost didnt write. It was questions and they are a series of escalating questions that out to be issued by the National Institute of Mental Health. This is the federal Government Agency is this was the standard form for kids eight and up and theres series of escalating questions about whether and why a kid want to kill himself and and by the way, asking parents to leave the room is part the protocol on the website. Right on the website. National institute of Mental Health, division of or its affiliated with nih and so it was just one more instance when i realized a few things where i was reminded a few things. Well, one of the questions was, wasnt it . Have you felt like killing yourself today . Right. Right. Do you think your parents might be better off without you now, remember, my son wasnt there for a suicidal ideation. He was there for a stomach ache. And also, these questions were so bizarre that, anyone would put them in front of a kid right. They flew in the face of anything we would think was good for kids. Now it turns out a lot of psychologists, when i would interview them, say no about we know that asking about suicide encourage propensity for suicide. Okay but these kids are getting deluged. I learned with suicide in a way that we havent seen. Well, its like a push pull for suicide. Im surprised that psychologists told you that because most of the literature aware of about suicide is being very careful and talking about it, especially to young people, there is a kind of virality in it and normalizing it, a response. Lifes distress is very dangerous. Exactly right. So suicide can contagious. And there are three things that they have found that that researchers have found increase. Theres really great studies on this increase. The contagion or the chance of spreading it and that is valorize seeing the subject presenting it as a means of coping and. The third is, oh, in repetitive mention. Okay, so even researchers when i asked about this very often would tell me, well, you know, its simple. Well, i wont do that maybe. Thats right. I mean, i believe that. And measured it two days later. I think the was very shortly after that wont make a kid want to kill himself. Okay but then what i had from from the investigation going into the school so you the getting the documents on the quantity of these surveys the the and the surveys kids were getting getting across the country was that kids being asked about this in a repetitive manner. They were presenting this as normalized. They were explaining it very to the kids in term in the surveys as a means of coping. They were doing lot of the things that actually the research showed was the opposite of would be the sensible or responsible thing to and these are by the way, these author these surveys are very often written by the cdc that are, you know, statewide that sorry, across the theyre in all kinds of state. You know, every state that i found so and thats sort of a theme of the book that the psychological the psychological literature is actually pretty clear on things. The true genic harms of therapeutic intervention there are a series of known tested harms that therapy can. We have all sorts research on this and what the practitioner is are doing is flying in the face it now not not every practitioner but a lot of them especially with kids and teens what do you think is going on here . I mean, jonathan haidt, whos cite in the book as a sociologist he has a book coming out about Mental Health distress. His thesis is the smartphone in 2012 getting put in the hands of children is the key moment in the decline of kids Mental Health. But do you do you have a timeline i know you think the smartphone is part of it but what youre describing im sure is shocking to a lot of people. My daughters 28. The idea that as an eight year old should be asked these of questions is appalling to me. What how did this sweep across the country and enter schools and become this bad therapy become standard fare. I so i completely agree with know the idea that social media is very very bad for kids and absolutely was a major factor in the decline of adolescent Mental Health. Theres no question in my mind thats true. And last book was about a particular contagion. The trans idea of a trans identity and gender dysphoria being spread through largely through social media. But things in a society arent usually, you know, you know, vector and and and and single factor and i think this is another instance where there were many things at play. And ill give you an example. If i went back to my book, its true that social media played a huge role in convincing of teen girls that they were transgender. And its also true that almost every case of an adolescent i talk to or parents i talk to, they had a therapist who played a big in their revelation. And here was the interesting thing. It was almost never a gender therapist because anxious teens werent taken straight to the gender therapist. They were taken the moment they had a anxiety or a sadness in middle school. They were taken to us. I go to an amish psychotherapist who sat with them weekly and explored what might be causing their distress, and they would explore many things like mom, like all sorts of things like know trauma. And one of the things that therapist would explore them was gender. And that sort of, you know, sort of stayed the back of my head the whole time was that they were playing a role. And there was the strange about it and not a single instance, a parent say to me, and by the end i probably talked to a thousand parents and not a single instance to my to my parent. Did a parent say to me, i took her to therapist and the therapist said, youre not transgender. Middle schools hard. So i just think theres multi you. Its a multi variant thing. I think there are a lot of things going on. So you describe lot of phenomena in this book which ive read. Its fabulous. Everyone read it. You list ten ways to bad therapy. So i dont want to go through all ten, but lets talk about each of you of them and. These are all things that our kids are being taught by everyone from to School Counselors to therapist this one is paid close attention to your feelings. Let guide you as. You say, thats a wonderful way. Create bullies and narcissists so say why being in touch with your feelings is bad advice. Well, it turns out that if you really are honest it and straightforward the answer most of your day isnt exactly happy right. Youre often feeling some minor distress of some kind or another that we all suppress all day long. Theres irritation, theres worry, right . Theres an itch. Theres a little of allergy. Theres all kinds of things that are on our minds in a given day. And if we are constantly asked about them, were very, very likely to produce a raft of primarily negative responses, especially if youre a kid, because youre going to be really as if youre a kid. See adults, we know were also always supposed to say, great, when were asked how were doing. Great. But especially in america. But if you think about it, just being asked, how are you feeling . And was brought to my mind by a wonderful psychiatrist in germany hes a professor psychiatry Michael Linden who said me he said, how are you feeling . Right now . And i said, great. And he said, no, not i can see. Youre concentrating on this interview. Youre and he was right. I was actually exhausted i had had to wake up at 5 a. M. To do the interview because i was in l. A. And he was germany. I hated how i looked on the webcam, right . I hadnt put on makeup. I look terrible. He is relaxed and happy. We did it on his schedule in germany and if being to think about how i was feeling was to produce negative responses. So thats our doing that with kids tending to their feelings, worrying about their feelings, telling them to selfmonitor and Pay Attention to their feelings. It sounds compassionate. It really does but i think it often and if you think about it produces the negative a negative reaction. Right. Because actually if you thought about it of life getting through a day involves a certain amount of repression right being good friend, being a good spouse, getting work done. It means not going to attend to all all my worries, all my fears, all my misgivings. Im just going to keep going. Thats actually how we live and thats how we want kids to live to some degree, to which doesnt mean, of course, never share your feelings. Of course not. But it also means finish your math. Test them. Well talk about it. Another one is you describe work of peter gray at boston, whos wonderful the great scholar of and he writes despairingly about the transformation of play in america. And you write about how that you think is a key to our problems. You say that we all all the kids all kids need the three ds danger discovery and dirt. Can you talk a little bit whats happened to play the three ds . Sure. Well, hes done wonderful re hes wonderful i remember reading his textbook in college which is is fantastic he does this he has this introductory psychology textbook which is just a great read, believe it or not. So i was excited to get in touch with him and hes is this work showing that play has completely changed. Why because we monitor it, we surveilling, we stop all the risk and all the danger. And it turns out what happens when you never let a kid test their limits, they dont what their limits are. And they become afraid of all things arent actually scary because never learned to navigate them. But theres Something Else too, which is that we all play of the evolutionary beneficial sort, which involves some risk and danger. The kind mom doesnt to hear about that stuff actually. And hes done studies on this produces short term joy and long term contentment. That kind discovery and feeling of capacity. I can climb to the top of those monkey bars. I did it. Its very hard to do today with your mom like or errand or the recess nervously stand, telling you to come down, but actually it gives it gets a kid to test what he can do and feel good about that. And were sort of robbing kids that the last one i want to talk about is what you call drug the rise of psychotropic medication for children. You say changing the brain chemistry of your child is one of the most profound you can do. And once kids get on these medicines, they could possibly be for decades for life. And theyre put on after a cursory analysis as the parents sign off, say more that and and why arent more saying no so you know i talk about the ways childhood has changed and one of the big ones is parental authority. In the last generation, parents were afraid, i think, because theyre afraid of inflicting trauma, emotional trauma. They were afraid of asserting their own authority. These are my rules and you have to live with them, which doesnt mean being cruel, doesnt mean being unloving. It just means we have rules. And the problem is, when you dont lay down rules for a kid, not do they end up less happy, more anxious, less depressed. They also cant be trusted, right . When they have rules, they eventually learn. They understand your values and you send them the world. You know, they know the rules and you can trust them. But if you never down rules, youre always of hovering and. I think that then the question youre always hovering. And also theyre theyre very disregulated. They often act out well if youre afraid to punish, youre afraid to lay down rules because youve studied parenting and youve heard that that can traumatize a child. You if you lay down rules, if lay down rules, thats what you thats what tell you. Well, guess what . You still need to control their behavior because theyre acting out in class. You dont get to abdicate that at some point. They cant be screaming or running around the classroom. So now youre stuck, medicating them and. And i think what should be a last resort, which doesnt mean never it its never necessary, but what should be a last resort is a first and young woman who i really admire from india who writes very well about gen z. She wrote a wonderful article and her supposition is that so many young women today identify or young people identify or as asexual, not because they actually would be. But because been on ssri for so long now thats just of many examples of way that getting in there and changing a child while theyre still developing is a radical measure and again im not against everyone ever an antidepressant or a stimulant or any other things you there are various reasons that one might need it. Even a child might need it. The problem is that were doing it without to the costs and the leading a child. A Young Persons sex drive is a big deal because actually its a fascinating story. When i interviewed marcy bowers for a piece for free press, she told me so. She was she was a transgender surgeon. She told me this fascinating story she worked with. She was a trans under surgeon. She does gender surgeries and she was interviewing sorry, she was working on a who had suffered with female genital mutilation and she she was doing surgery guess reparative work and of the things she told me was you it turns out when you remove someones sex drive it doesnt diminish their desire for sex they have more trouble making intimate because part of our drive to be close to people is sex drive. So when you get in with a medication and totally alter a whos still developing who could be through a phase or could be going a hard time, its a radical thing to be doing and again. Im not saying never do it, but i think before you start down the road to i havent even gotten stimulants. Theres i mean there is the literature on each of these things is they are serious serious. And before you go down that road, i think you turn your life upside down to avoid it if you can if you can. And there are behaviors, modifications that you can do to with adhd. There are other things can do. You can remove tuck, for instance, from a kids life, especially little kids thatll help with concentration. There are a lot of things you can do, but that is the yeah, thats the idea i just saw Lenore Skenazy here is and want to get back to the to play lenore is the founder of let grow is a Great Organization that is trying to bring freedom free. And thank you. So if interested in more on that subject look up let grow. Lets talk about the rise of social Emotional Learning. You document how this permeates our classrooms. Its not something outside of curriculum. Its being put into the curriculum what is this do you know how this started . And once how did it spread all over the whole country and tell us what a bones and no bones day is so i think it about 15 years ago and again like a lot of things that arent actually good and have some harmful it started out you know potentially with with good intentions. Some people dispute that by the way. But but i give a general to try to give things the benefit of the doubt. And a lot of people who bought into it, i think, had good intentions. And the idea is were going to teach you how to emotionally regulate a series of classes. But this is for kids. How old . Well, its good question, but mostly elementary kids. Theyre very aggressive. It is very invasive in Elementary School and very by the way, a lot of parents dont even know their kids are through this. They never send the textbooks. They almost never send the textbooks home. But its all over the country. I think i read recently it was 95 of Public Schools had it or Something Like that. Very high numbers have some social Emotional Learning and the advocates are so impassioned about this many the teachers will say we should do social Emotional Learning in every class class should be about emotional regulation. Every class should be about thinking about your fearing feelings. And thats easier than right. Its a lot easier than teaching algebra. Yeah. And you know, they insist and i interviewed sort of, you know, people who are big advocates or run these programs that social learning is just going to help with skills like mindfulness, like, you know, emotional regulation and selfawareness and all the things youve told us. We we want. Its not, you know that, right . Well, the practice is its funny. Yeah. So they they say that its not Group Therapy. Its not Group Therapy. It looks a lot Like Group Therapy because a lot of the in order to talk about emotions, what do you have to do. Well, you give examples, right . You ask kids to share examples. Can you think of a time you were disappointed . Can you think of a time you were bullied . Can you think of a time you felt unheard or sad . Then theyll throw in can you think of a time when you were really happy . Well, yeah, but that doesnt usually as much excitement and discussion theres so much to say about this tell with bones and yeah. Oh the no bones and no bones. I had one teacher, i went to this three day teacher conference, so i started out writing a slightly different i started out thinking it had something to do with the way that these kids werent so much distressed because they were being raised differently. It was something to do with their parenting and actually sold book with that hypothesis. And then i attended this three day kids Mental Health conference given by the Public School system. One of the largest in the country. And so i kind of wanted to know, like, what were Public Schools doing to support kids Mental Health . And i realized that therapy far from being a somewhat minor phenomenon confined to less than half kids they it was being cropped dusted among across an entire generation and that kids were being asked about feelings all the time kids were being told to share their pain all the time. Kids were talking about their trauma all the and it wasnt an accident that they were talking in these terms it. Wasnt an accident that every kid talked about their social anxiety that wasnt just weird tic that was the language of psychopathology that they had picked up from Mental Health professional as many of them in school. So thats when the any you asked about the no bones in books so that was based a one of the teachers at the conference said that she begins every school day by asking kids this thing she picked up from a meme on youtube which is based on a pug getting bones and question is is it a bones day or a no bones day . Meaning so are you do you think a good day today or a bad day . Well, why on earth would you be in class that way . Right . I mean, so i interviewed absolutely brilliant and, wonderful woman whos a professor of uc irvine, elizabeth loftus, who is one of the greatest living psychology s and it was just a delight to interview her. But one of the things she told me was that very often in Group Therapy sessions and we know Group Therapy often comes with iatrogenic effects like people sadder, like making them more worried, like making them worse about the loss of a loved one, she said. Its like a little bit of memory of sort of memory poker on or sadness where you think about, oh, you just shared a memory thats sad. Well, if i Say Something minor, its going to its going to bore everyone. So im going to one up that and this is just a natural human response to sharing our pain, right . You dont want to say Something Like, gosh, now im embarrassed to share mine because it was so minor. You naturally kind of one up. And we were doing this with kids effectively in school. Wheres your courage from in our world today to describe what what really examined it and presented requires courage in both your books youve demonstrated that where did you get that and how do you spread more of what youve got across the country . Thats so nice. First of all. Thank you. I dont you know, i really appreciate that. I dont see myself that way. For whatever its worth, i see myself with someone thats somewhat of a disagreeable i guess they in the psychological behave, you know, a personality types i guess personality meaning i you know i dont tend to not consider peoples feelings always and just sort of say and so i think it sort of just sort of fit with my personality in every circumstance to just sort of say, i think and not always be thinking about what everyones feelings are. But but the reason i bring that up is something important. We used to remember that there was personality variation and that that was actually some kids were more inattentive. Some kids more disagreeable, some kids colored within the lines and did exactly they were told some kids like math. Some kids and that somehow we would all come together and create this Amazing Society because there were a lot of different kinds of jobs to do. And one of the things i learned is just sort of personally was that my personality wasnt always great with all of my girlfriends, right . You dont always want say everything that youre thinking and no question ive hurt feelings before, but there was this role for me. It out because were areas in which it was good to tell the truth and i think thats so for our kids to know as well that there are we dont have diagnose and medicate everything because who why someone may come to love our kids some spouse who knows what job might be perfect for them because of some quirk and before we go in there and dilly that with medication it doesnt mean dont make them responsible dont try to make them good people dont treat them you know, teach them to be kind and good citizens. But before go and delete what might just be a quirky part of their personal maybe theres a use for it maybe theyll get some pleasure from it. Maybe the world needs a. You describe look lets move to possible solutions you describe one parenting style that you think could be helpful as, an antidote to this gentle and you call it style parenting and. You make the point you do not have to be a dad to do dad style parenting which you summarize it as knock it off and shake off to talk more about that and i if youre old enough that style of parenting sounds very familiar to you so where to go and should we bring it back. I think we should absolutely bring it back. And heres why its not that everyone to say it to a kid in every instance of course we all we all remember times when we were we were in serious pain. But but someone we tried to tell about it. Didnt Pay Attention or didnt listen. Those are the things that sort stick with us and make us probably overcorrect. Right i mean, as someone who has accidentally kids of hers to school while, they had a fever you know weve all done these things where we didnt realize kid was actually sick this time or actually injured. I didnt know it was broken. I didnt you know that of thing. But but heres the thing the problem today is not that, you know, not everybody says it. Its that no one says it. No one ever says to a kid, youll live, go back and play they need to hear it from right need to know because they will through and i learned this in the last poll they will throw all worries at their parents sometimes to see if theyre real, if theyre important. And girls who are bringing to their therapist and their mom. I think i have gender dysphoria. Some of them just needed to hear it. No, dont. Okay. Youre 12. Youre not a pansexual for a lot of them that actually did a lot of good right there. Some of these girls were just testing stuff out and kids do this all the time. And its funny, i was i was at a soccer game recently with my my son, one of my sons play soccer and was with this really tough team and one of the boys very athletic kid. The other team got not really knocked and he was an africanamerican kid and his dad was standing next to me and i heard him mutter, hes fine, get up. And the boy did and he was fine and i just gosh, i havent heard that in a long time just that faith that you can keep going. They need our faith that they can keep going. Kids because they dont know it. They dont know it. They start out thinking every scratch is a major deal. Right and when we minimize more serious things that were going through that, you know, dad just lost his job or, you know, things that actually worry about because we want to take every pain of their super duper seriously. Sometimes we magnify them. Easter under the bed. And thats what im worried about. Its not the kids who are anorexic and desperate. We need help. Of course, we know what to do with, right . We know a child needs treatment. They are seriously ill. The question is, what do you do . All the scratches . Because theyre going to get a lot of and all the broken arms and its not trauma and. We shouldnt be telling them that. It is. So youre in the trenches. You have young kids who are going through School Systems where. Presumably this is happening. What do you what do you do . But what can a parent do . And can individual parents do it alone . I mean, there is almost some risk at being the parent against everyone else is being taught. Do parents have to organize to. But parents need to do all kinds of things. This is the issue im most optimistic about. We can this we can out the overmedication bummed out kids the over psycho pathologizing of bummed out worried kids that can fix heres we need to do and this is a pervasive problem i it with the last book too we are teaching our kids what we believe those those house signs in this house we believe and theyre very showy and very silly but we arent telling our kids. What we believe in this house i would tell parents all the time, does your daughter know your version, your views on gender, ideology well, i dont want to get into it with her. Well, her teacher does hers. Her counselor does. Why dont you tell her what you believe . And thats true of therapy, too, which is dont tell a kid. You know, im not saying tell a kid, you can never go to therapy or that its a bad or weak thing to. Do i would never say that but what im telling you what im saying is that you can tell kid youre going to be fine. Theres nothing wrong with you because most of the time there theres a huge variation humanity. And its amazing it really should be embraced, especially by their parents, because know that that little bit of weirdness is what their grandfather had. And he did some great things and it might have been annoying people at some times that he was curt or whatever the problem may have been, but also might have helped that he was so stubborn. Right . Its not all going be roses. We know that thats the story of right human survival and thriving. Its not all easy. Thats okay. We dont need to rush ahead and make easy. We need to tell them this. What your grandfather went through your. Grandfather. And thats the that you can get through it to. Are you doing Different Things with your kids from most of their friends . I mean, do your kids have phones . Do they have unlimited Internet Access . Yes. Are they on teams or are they out building forts in the backyard . What . So the kids dont have phones there are 13, 13 and 11. They dont have phones. But i will say that the tech issue is a big one. Its hard because everybodys connected. And, you know, the the effort to phones out of schools at a minimum during the school day is so important and such a no brainer. Its almost an embarrassing we havent done it sooner. It absolutely needs to happen. Im behind this. You know, 100 . I think there are wonderful out there fighting like jonathan hiatt. I just its fantastic. And i really, really hope you are successful. So at cabinet during the school day but the phones are hard i think that what it was like having your kids everyones on a phone theyre how do your kids know where to go whats happening so i you know there are enough phones out there if they need a phone they can borrow one. I mean, thats how many there are. And eventually if we get them a phone, havent decided theyre going to go to high school next. So i have to make a decision what to do about that if we get them a phone we will either be some kind of flip phone or itll be what they call a kosher. These things actually exist, but it limits all the apps and whatever you have sort of basic apps like whatsapp if they need, if they absolutely need to communicate for school, im not sure about it, but but i want to Say Something this so important. If you raise your kids right, which means give them a responsibility give them high expectations, tell them your values, not my values. Your values. You can trust them more easily with, all kinds of things and think we can stop, let go of some of our neurosis if we actually make our kids stronger. See, we spent a generation obsessing over their happiness and we did almost nothing we never thought about. But will this my kids stronger . Thats the question. Its not never give them an academic accommodation or untimed tests. Its do they really need will it make them stronger . Are they just a little bit not so great at math. How how significant is this . Because i talk to parents one woman i talked to call her angela in book but she said the worst thing she ever did was get her son and accommodate in an academic accommodation at school so he could get out of taking timed math tests, she said, looking he was a little slow to finish, often had one or two left over a math problems. But as soon as he got that accommodation, he used that as an excuse for everything, he stopped trying. She felt it sabotage his academic career and what he could have done. I mean, thats the question to ask. Does he really it and i think and heres the most important thing that parent is in the best position to know the answer because they know they needed they know what their parents needed they have some sense having raised the kid of knowing what their kid needs better than someone who just saw them for half hour session or just met them at the start of seventh grade and really just wants this kid to stop asking questions. You tell the story in the book, you talk about how there are miles stones for kids maturing and independence and where crushing those. Its really no deal if youre 16 year old goes to the Grocery Store in the neighborhood and picks up some groceries. But its kind of a big deal if your nine year old does your nine year old tell about that. So one of the things you talk that you talked before, courage and i think of myself as having fear, but i have slightly different fear. So its not that im afraid of lots of things, something happening to my kids. Right. Im not of telling the truth for whatever reason. Im afraid of a world in which lies. Im more afraid of that. And when it comes to sending my kids to the store, which i do, one of the things i learned from talking to many, many parents and i connected over 200 interviews for the book was that if you dont let your kids if you dont suck it up and let your kids things they are capable of doing, they stop wanting to leave the cage. I kept talking parents who didnt let their nine year old explore the neighborhood, and then when they were 13, she couldnt get them out of the house. Im afraid of that. And i hate it when my kids the house. Its not that im so brave. Its that i feel like i cant just communicate my anxiety to them because. We know that anxiety is really contagious and very often the best way to treat a kid. Anxiety is by treating the parents because the parents are actually the source. So i kind of have to be brave them because they will be stronger in the world if. They know what they can handle. If they feel like they can, they are not terrified because. You were late to pick them up because they have a sense of like i got this, i know how to ask for help. I talk to a stranger. I know approximate where my house is and how to get there. Theyll be so much stronger if they can do those things. That is a great point to turn it to the audience for questions and. We have people with microphones. So please ask your question into the mic and over here. Hi. So its a statement and a question i an eight year old, shes in third grade. Im very into this social Emotional Learning minefield. So a little anecdote last we were on holiday break and my daughter just loves unstructured play. She was like, mommy, i want to play school. And so she took an hour to set up her lesson plan and. So i go in and, she said, okay, now were going to start the day. What were going to talk about our feelings. So, i mean this so resonates and you know, shes in third grade, first and second grade. It was like naming your emotions called the ruler, which is this new curriculum thats been rolled out with a lot of fanfare and and what they do is they plot their emotions on what is like a color board and so she said, mommy, you know, how are you feeling today . And i said, time out like really is just what you really do. And she said, oh, yeah, this is, you know, well are you ready for are you gry . And im like, who came up with these colors . So theyre expecting chalk. I mean these are really like our symptoms, arbitrary concepts. Anyway, its very real, but i want to take this a step further. Now, what theyre going through is kind weeks. So you have you seen this in your research now . Its like not only social learning, but its like being kind to the nth degree. And thats what really worries me, especially having girl like kindness above all. So yeah, two things about kindness so first of all, whats so interesting, you know, i love the comment. Its totally its one of the interesting things about kindness the way they push it now in schools is because the thrust is all therapeutic. They actually explain it in terms of Mental Health, be kind because kind people are happier. They tell kids, thats not why you need be kind. Right. And no one should tell a kid that. First of all, youre lying to them. Im not sure thats true. I that sociopaths enjoy their trait i dont know but but also more importantly thats not why youre kind kind because its the right thing to treat a person kind of like right. These are virtue is but but Something Else too. I learned when i was researching theres a wonderful book by paul bloom empathy and this book showed hes an academic psychologist. Its an amazing book. But he says that empathy hes empathy researcher. He says that its actually not possible to with more than two people at the same time more to, you know, conflicting or do people at the same time. So it actually psychologically has a narrow aperture and youre more likely to preference the people in front of you and their pain and often coincides with to the ones outside ambit it actually goes along see if fairness and justice are your guide. You may treat everyone fairly, but if empathy is your guide, youre very likely to preference the people in front of you and show greater cruelty to those outside your ambit. I dont think theres a better example of this in Society Today than. Letting biological boys into sports. We empathy for the transgender boy and. Who cares how he completes rex. All of girls achievement their records maybe even jeopardizing their you know fitness and safety because were seeing girls get injured. Thats empathy anyway. And yeah, the gentleman over there. When you find upon the microphone, im sorry, in doing your study, have you found that is a link between or an inverse link between the number of children in a household and the prevalence of the phenomena youre describing so which which phenomenon the whole therapeutic approach to child raising. So theres a few so theres a few studies sort of touch on this that i can talk. But i would just say that having more kids seems to be really good for kids. Turns out siblings are a really good way to shock test kit other kids, right . Youre not going to be crushed the moment someone teases you and call it bullying. If you have a bunch of siblings who regularly call you stupid and you see youre fine. And one of the problems is not only that we start stopped having more kids. Not only that, we didnt we let them be around cousins, grandparents, people who love them. This so important relational stability we dont give them this. People who you and love you back over a lifetime is a huge part of Human Happiness thats the harvard grant study showed that thats a huge part of it not people moms to watch you people who really love you so i think surrounding you having you go through the beta testing and of siblings theres no doubt thats thats important theres theres another thing to i think gene when you did this research where during the pandemic it turned out that kids College Kids College coeds who were sent home the who went back to larger families even if they really didnt want to there because they really want to be back in college and they ended up happier than the kids who were isolated. And it didnt matter that they didnt want to be back in moms house and in her kitchen, under her rules, they still ended up with much better Mental Health. And degree. Thank you so much. So interesting. My question is that now not only are all kids in therapy, but all are in therapy too. And in every corporate environment. We also have these social emotional know rules that we have to follow. What that doing to us as adults. All the people in this room. Okay, so, you know, i write about kids for a reason because im interested also because i tend to think adults in a free society can be trusted to know whats right for them. So just my big prejudice is if you think that you want to be in therapy or if you think you need therapy, maybe you do. But are there androgenic of therapy . No question. Theres a great deal of research on this, as i said, and here are a few classic things that can happen in therapy. People can be made more anxious, people can be made more depressed, rehashing a worry or a fear, or having to even produce one weekly oh, gosh, im meeting with my therapist. I have to come up with something that i was upset about this week. Right. And when weve done it right, i said, what am i going to talk about today . You know its like you produced story that you might have just let go right . But also it can undermine relationships with spouses, with parents. The rising generation has more parental alienation, young people cutting off their parents than ever seen. And the therapists are no doubt playing a role. I interviewed a psychology whos an expert who deals with alienation, and he said, me. Theres a great quote. Josh Joshua Coleman is brilliant, wonderful guy. And he gave me a great quote at the beginning of the book and he said, if i if i had to tell parents one thing, the thing thats going to make them angriest is you are the biggest risk. And im paraphrasing is the chair therapist. Theyre going to see at some point. So we know that therapy can do these things right. Or the other thing can do. And this is also what were seeing in the rising generation. It can make you feel like you cant handle your life. The habit of a pair of checking with a therapist weekly can make you second guess that you can make a decision and do things on your own without checking in, without asking permission, without strategizing and it can do this to adults. But what is scary is i interviewed so many kids. Youre seeing this across this generation, this incapacity this lack of efficacy, which is a side effect of. But i interviewed one woman who i thought really nailed it back. I call her becca in the book. She a high school senior. Shed been in therapy since she was six because her parents divorced. They immediately put her in therapy. It wasnt like she had a necessarily a problem per or not a Mental Health problem, but her parents divorced and they were told thats what you do. She stayed in therapy until she was 17. And asked her, well, you know, are you on any medication . No. She said she has trouble with anxiety. Okay. What are you working on now with your therapist . She said, oh, well, im going to college. I just got into college, so im working with my therapist on making friends. I want to do a good job making friends in college. So were sort of strategizing this is what were saying. They dont they can make friends without the therapist theyre afraid try they dont what they can do because weve let people be experts to them on all sorts of things the used to just trust themselves try it and you want to know why were not seeing in my view tech ceo the founders this generation because of the millennials. We saw tons of them, right . Facebooks, you know spotify. So where are the gen z tech . These kids are afraid. Try theyre afraid to go out on their own because always been told before you that you could get hurt. Check in with this. Check in with an adult. Check with mom. Yeah. Yes. Thank you for writing this book in this great conversation. I want to go back to something you were emily, you asked abigail how she is maybe parenting differently than people around her and and abigail talked about that the values that have that you want to instill into your children. Right now my values are in direct with the values of the school. My kids go to the other parents. So i have to say to my kids heres what i believe. But other people dont believe that. And then we have to sort of strategize how we hide or share our beliefs customs. So im wondering if you can talk about that, because that is a really weird thing to communicate to my kids. You know, that essentially we live a kind of left wing stasis. You know, your Public School situation. And so heres what would say to you. Your kid is going to face a lot of people who are not afraid to communicate they think is right to your kids. So you before you send them there it isnt well other people we think this but other people feel its and this is right because im your mom and i know whats right and this is right i dont know whats right for everyone. I know right for you because im your mom. Remember when we used to say that to kids and they marched off for a period, they believed it and then they decided we were wrong about everything because kids do. But in the back of their heads they still had that voice and it sometimes stopped them from doing a lot of bad things, even though they really were at mom sometimes if they if we buried that in their heads they wouldnt try drugs even though they really wanted to because they couldnt get that voice out saying, im going to kill you if you do that right. I think the ability to tell our kids right from wrong before hear the opposite. The inversion is so important about all kinds of things. What think about free speech. They shouldnt not know that an important thing as an american to cherish free speech. And yet we send them off assuming kind of get that value in college. But theyre getting the opposite because theyre going in and being proselytized to and i think this should be true of all kinds of things we think are good and right for them. Yes, some of them are they will reject some of them well get wrong. Its okay. Well get some things wrong about what we think is right for them. Thats okay, too because and this is very old Research Going back to the 1960s, kids need the structure. They need the rules and unfortunately and i talked to many interesting people who told me this, including experts in things like radical movements when they dont get the clarity at home, sometimes they looking for it from radical sources. Thats a great place to end because our times up. So thank you for question. Lisa. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you all so much for coming into. Hello, new york. Hello, upper west side. Hello our bookish friends on cspan. Thanks for coming out tonight, lila. So nice to meet you. Congratulations on your book. Thank you so much. Really great to be here. So appreciate you all coming out. And