Great Pods
Naval Ravikant and Aaron Stupple — How to Raise a Sovereign Child

Key Points

Children should be viewed as knowledge creators who deserve to learn reasons behind actions rather than simply following arbitrary rules
Parents should aim to be a gateway to interests - someone who helps cultivate and fuel their children's natural curiosities rather than squashing them
Every time you force a child to do something, you inevitably set yourself up as an adversary, which damages the parent-child relationship and trust
Rules create confusion about the real reasons for behaviors - children should understand why they brush teeth (cavities/breath) not because "mom says so"
Most parenting problems can be solved through creativity and problem-solving rather than enforcement of arbitrary rules
Children need clear ownership of their belongings rather than forced sharing, and the ability to opt out of situations when needed
Building in agenda-free time blocks where you're not trying to manage or control children allows for more authentic interactions
Screen time concerns may be overblown - children's tastes naturally evolve from simple to more sophisticated content over time
The goal of parenting is gradual freedom maximization - slowly releasing control so children learn independence incrementally rather than suddenly
Taking small steps like relaxing bedtimes by 30 minutes or removing one rule at a time allows families to test what works
Children often naturally self-regulate eating when not restricted - they get bored of junk food and develop more sophisticated tastes
Parents should be curious about their children's interests rather than dismissive, even if those interests seem trivial or concerning
Sibling conflicts can be managed by creating opt-out spaces, establishing clear ownership, and avoiding immediate intervention in disputes
Learning happens naturally through real-world applications when children see the purpose - like writing birthday invitations or reading to play video games
Many traditional parenting rules are arbitrary social conventions that haven't been properly questioned or examined
The four harms of rules are: parent-child adversarial relationships, damage to child's self-confidence, confusion about real reasons for behaviors, and learned deference to authority
Parents should model the behavior they want to see rather than creating separate standards for children that they wouldn't follow themselves
Preserving trust and keeping communication open is more valuable than winning any particular battle over rules or behavior
Full Transcript

Language: en
humans are unique that they are
interested in stuff and it's actually a
deep philosophical question of what is
an interest how does a person know that
something is interesting and that is the
magic like you know Elon wants to
preserve Consciousness as this light
flickering in the universe I want to
preserve interests like a kid that's
interested in something that is
absolutely precious and I want to
cultivate that I want to pour fuel on
that fire and
and anything to preserve that and so
that's where the adversary comes in call
what you want I don't want to step on
that or squash that I want my kid to see
me as a gateway to interests as someone
who just like can make things more
interesting anything that I'm interested
they add to it so if I'm interested in
video games great my daughter's
interested in YouTube and now she's you
know filming and trying to make YouTube
videos and then she's got to figure out
how the camera works and then like all
the stuff is there and so I want to get
her like okay let me get you a camera
let me get you something to set it up
which dolls are you using how can I help
I'll hold the camera right let's do a
storyboard you know what a storyboard is
like that's what I mean I think taking
children seriously could be how do you
preserve and augment your kids interests
and how are you always an an enabler and
a supporter and a guide and never
someone who's just pouring cold water
because you know that's not writer
brother Nal brother Aaron nice to see
you both and nval would you like to kick
us off yeah grab the reins go to
town yeah so Aaron stuple here who I
actually met I think we met online right
yeah we met online on various channels
Twitter air chat and just talking about
various things he came out of the
critical rationalism crowd which is a
group of thinkers that surround David
deuts and his
philosophy and Aaron struck me as
someone at first who was like this man
insane but I realize in a good way he's
a very ground up very principled
thinker and what I really liked about
talking to Aaron who you know came out
kind of as out of nowhere is that he
will take these philosophical sound
positions that are very controversial
and then he will just defend them
indefatigably without tiring he'll just
keep going he'll keep repeating himself
if you need to he'll explain it from 10
different angles but he is very tied
into the idea of using creativity to
find answers to problems and to not
using coercion and so he would end up in
these rabbit holes where I would find
myself having to you know usually when I
meet someone like like that I usually
side with them I learn from them and I
kind of kind of you know try to help
preach that to the rest of the world
here it was a little bit the opposite I
found myself in the defensive I found
him too radical too hard to take
seriously But as time went on I actually
realized he was right about a lot of
things it gave me that very
uncomfortable feeling and so you know
Aaron actually wrote a book called The
Sovereign child he's been espousing a
theory around taking children seriously
which is an older philosophy but he's I
would say the best Expositor of that
philosophy but he also had really great
takes on everything from is AI going to
end the world to what do you do if you
walk into an emergency room because he's
a doctor to how to run a classroom
because I think he's also been a public
school teacher so I just found him very
compelling person to talk to and I'm
still honestly trying to digest a lot of
what he has to say and I think some of
it has seeped into my life and my family
life and some of it still hasn't so I'm
here to challenge him interrogate him
and to reveal him to the rest of the
world I will say that this may end up
being one of your most controversial
episodes for for two reasons I think one
is it really attacks at a core level the
entire system we have around how we view
children and raise children so it's
really a you know a big Fu to the entire
system everything schooling to Parenting
child raising
to how do you take care of the most
precious thing in your life and second
it's a bunch of dudes it's a bunch of
men standing around talking about this I
don't see the wives or the women so you
know you can just call this the Bro
parenting episode right this is a bunch
of dads and potential dads talking about
you know what is the best way to raise
Sovereign children so let me just start
off by maybe asking Aaron give us a very
quick background on yourself and also
mention how many kids you have just so
we underscore some some bonafides zero
he actually has zero
children zero children it's all
theoretical
I've got five kids ages 7 to one and
thanks so much for those kind words Nal
I really appreciate that and it's been
so much fun talking with you and your
cohort on air chat and Twitter and
elsewhere I started off as a public
school teacher coming out of college
and got you know spent five years doing
that and was really kind of deep into
the human nature and the experience of
young people and formed some pretty
strong ideas
about yeah human nature and children and
and then converted that into medical
school and I've been a physician
practicing physician now for the past 10
years internal medicine and along the
way I got into one of our our
mutual Heroes David Deutsch and his his
take on Carl Popper's philosophy and
within that David deuts and his
colleague Sarah Fitz clarage they both
developed this theory on children in
childhood called taking children
seriously and I stumbled upon this right
with the birth of our first child and I
thought boy this is pretty radical and
pretty interesting
and after you know reading more about it
and learning more about it like was kind
of face with you know do I do I apply
this to my own
kid because it's very different from the
the typical kind of conventional view on
parenting and what i' had already been
very comfortable with coming out of
teaching and and I did the short stories
that I did my wife and I she is very
open-minded and was open to these ideas
and we found ourselves just doing this
100% basically and so we've got five
kids now we've been doing this for seven
years and it's remarkable I've been into
philosophy as an amateur for you know
since college but this was the first
time that was a really strong
application of these ideas to my life
and I can't think of a more
transformative you know
day-to-day impactful practical
applicable set of ideas than this set of
ideas as applied to children I will say
I've Incorporated maybe you know call it
30 to 50% of what you're saying I was
already directionally inclined but I've
managed to incorporate some of it and my
wife and I are open to more of the rest
although it's it's pretty radical so
let's get into it great so just as an
example the philosophy that you're
talking about the taking children's
serious philosophy which you lay out in
the Sovereign child the book you
basically say the kids have no sleep
schedules you don't control what they
eat they have unrestricted screen time
I'm not even sure I have unrestricted
screen time but your kids have unrest
the screen time you don't force them to
go to school you don't make them do
you don't have rules like don't hit each
other you don't you try not to mediate
sibling conflict you don't force them to
share things they're not forced to say
thank you or obliged to say thank you or
even badgered to say thank you there's
no real punishment there's no timeouts
or withholding of
things there's no making them spend time
with the grandparents or the extended
family you don't force them to brush
their teeth you don't make them sit at
the dinner table that's optional
so what are we talking about here do you
have children or do you have roommates
feral animals F animals exactly so what
is this all about where did this come
from yeah the typical way of looking at
parenting is the question of where what
do you allow and what do you disallow
and almost every view on parenting is a
discussion of well we allow this but we
don't allow that and these are the
methods that we use to enforce these
limitations and these are the
justifications that we have have for
enforcing these limitations and what I
do my wife and I do is we just step away
from that question altogether and
instead view problems as they arise and
try to find solutions to those problems
rather than appealing to rules the way
we interact with our friends and our
family you know the adults in our lives
we don't like apply rules to people if
we're not crazy about you know what
we're having for dinner we don't say
okay this is the rule for dinner time we
Instead try to come up with something
that works for everybody and so you
could just start with sleep you could
start with brushing teeth or eating food
the idea is
to let kids choose what is interesting
or appealing to them and then deal with
problems as they arise you know couldn't
every parent say well I try to do that
you know I tried to convince them that
broccoli is good and salmon is good and
they should eat their broccoli and
salmon then they get dessert and so try
to convince her to do that but they
don't know any better and I always try I
always try to negotiate with them but
after a while you sort of give up CU you
realize they're just going to eat
chocolate until they explode and so I
have to cut that off and say no no more
ice cream and you're going to eat your
salmon and your broccoli and then you
can have your ice cream and then there's
a little bit of fighting and whining and
then eventually they just get used to it
so what's wrong with that I tried too I
tried to negotiate with them so the
thing that's wrong with it is that every
time you force your child to do
something you inevitably set yourself
yourself up as an adversary to your kid
so if you're trying to get them to eat
broccoli you are introducing a
difficulty in their life around
food and you know food is something that
is you know crucial to a person's
engagement with the world a young person
and you want them to learn about
broccoli for broccoli sake if broccoli
is good for you you want them to
understand broccoli for its own
properties if chocolate is bad for you
right if chocolate makes you feel bad
then you want them to understand that
as mediated by themselves not because
you're introducing yourself into that
thing so you don't want them to avoid
chocolate because they're afraid of dad
you don't want them to eat broccoli
because Dad makes you eat broccoli at
the dinner table and you can't get up
you can't go up and you know do what you
want to do because you've got to appeal
to you got to appease dad you know if
broccoli is really important then it's
really important that broccoli is not
confused if eating well is really
important then it's really important
that eating is not confused by what your
parents expectations are let me just
zoom out for a minute so if we look at
say David Deutsch and his collaborator
on taking children seriously and for
people who want more on David Deutsch we
might have some mentions and sidebars
but nval and I did an episode with David
why did they land on the tenets that
they did yeah for taking children
seriously and can we know that their
approach is Right In other words like is
there any way to even know that this is
a good approach to Parenting that's
perfect it's about knowing right and
there's different theories about how do
we know when we know something right we
call this epistemology the theory of
knowledge and and Deutsch's perspective
on this is
that humans are uniquely knowledge
creators and the thing about
children that's similar to adults is
that they're both knowledge creators in
the same way and the role of the parent
is to facilitate the child as a
burgeoning knowledge Creator and not to
foil that process and things that foil
that process of knowledge creation and
Discovery are authorities that
arbitrarily thwart you when you're
trying to learn about something
and so that that's how they hit on this
originally Sarah Fitz clarage was just
very interested in non-coercion and
raising children with zero coercion she
just had that in her mind as a parent
and she couldn't find she she kind of
searched around for schools of parenting
that that had zero coercion that had no
enforcement of rules and the the person
that she aligned with was David Deutsch
who brought
this epistemological
perspective and his whole argument is
that the problem with coercion is that
it blocks knowledge growth and your duty
as a parent is to facilitate and Foster
knowledge growth and that's the that's
the entire I would say one way of
describing the entire premise and I
think underneath deep down we all kind
of know that there's this contradiction
between okay we teach kids you know go
to school obey the rules do what we say
you don't know yet you're not ready
you're not ready you're not ready and
then all of a sudden they go to college
and there's a complete flip like now
you're free now you get to learn how to
operate in the real world you got to
think for yourself why can't you think
for yourself right and this whole time
you've domesticated them as almost like
animals so that they can function in
normal society you train them to eat you
train them to go to the bathroom you
train them to go to sleep you train them
to listen to the teacher and then all of
a sudden they're supposed to be
independent thinkers and creators and
knowledge generators and I think all of
us have a story of how some very
important parts of our life are all
about undoing all the things we were
taught and discovering for ourselves and
it could be learning how to learn
instead of being forced to learn
learning what to learn instead of the
set of subjects we were given in school
it could be finally figuring out proper
diet and nutrition which turns out to be
the opposite of what we were taught you
know the FDA pyramid is still up food
pyramid is still upside down starts with
grains and you know get your get your
bread and get your rice and then it kind
of goes down from there and meat is at
the bottom so a lot of it is about
undoing what we learned and a lot of us
also have the stories I personally the
story when I first went to college I ate
the worst food you could imagine I just
ate complete garbage I played a ton of
games it's mostly what I did spent most
of my time in the computer lab playing
video games and I was just so you know
enamored with a freedom not that my
mother was all that restrictive in the
first place but I just didn't have this
abundance of food and screen time that I
suddenly did in school and I think even
as an adult we're all still dealing with
social media addiction we're all still
dealing with eating more sugar than we
want to we're all still dealing with
trying to figure out the proper diet
we're all still trying to be disciplined
enough to exercise we're all still you
know trying not to Doom scroll all the
time so there's a learning process and
so the question is when do you start
that learning process you know and so I
think we have this distinction that kids
below a certain age they're like
somewhere between this is going to be
controversial but somewhere between
animals and slaves and ignoramuses
right they're like animals that you need
to teach them basic things so it sticks
like you teach a dog you teach the kid
what to eat when to eat how to eat when
to go to the bathroom and then they're a
little bit of a slave because we can
order them around we're physically
larger than them even if we're not
physically overpowering them every
missive is backed up with the threat of
or what else well I'll take it away from
you right it's like with the government
the government says I'm going to write
your ticket for jaywalking what they
really mean is I'll put you in jail if
you if you jaywalk because everything is
backed up at the end of the day with the
ability to throw you in jail the same
way everything you say as a parent is
backed up with the ability of force and
without that it wouldn't exist and then
finally we just assume the kids are not
capable of learning certain things fast
enough they have to brush their teeth
they have to not eat ice cream because
it might cause irreparable damage by the
time they're old enough but I think all
of these are valid concerns and they're
worth tackling right and you know we can
go more into them but I got a whole list
of controversial things to go through
with you okay so I'm going to be the guy
on the side guard chiming in do we have
more than one case study of people who
have applied this to children for more
than seven years like 20 years 25 years
just because I don't personally know
anyone who has parented their children
this way and so I'm wondering if we have
like a sample set of kids who have been
raised over yeah 15 20 plus years using
these methods and how they turned out
I'm not familiar with a set I know some
folks but I don't want to out them
individually but I'll even attack the
premise of the question we don't have to
name names well I'd say this is relevant
that you know when we think about kids
and what is a good way to parent we
think in empirical terms and in terms of
outcomes and research and scientific
tests and sociology and things like that
but there's a huge problem when you're
trying to answer a what is it
essentially a moral question trying to
answer it scientifically and from a
research base or an outcomes based basis
so a comparison with would be feminism
right the arguments for women's
Liberation were not outcomes-based
arguments and there were people who were
saying that you know what if we allow
women to control their own lives then
they're going to be worse off they're
going to be depressed they're going to
be you know all sorts of terrible things
are going to happen and you can you can
imagine the people who were
arguing against feminism in terms of
outcomes could create all sorts of
arguments about you know what those
outcomes would be or and women arguing
in favor or people are arguing in favor
of feminism in favor of women's
Liberation would say I don't I don't
care what the outcomes are I want to
control my own life you know I'm a full
status person and I am morally deserving
to make choices and decisions about my
life and the same goes for all you know
minority issues and you know human
Liberation movements is that their moral
arguments they're not scientific
arguments yeah in fact if you ask most
people like hey you know when you were
young do you wish your parents had
controlled you more or less I think most
people's complaint would be that my
parents were too controlling right well
are we dealing with some survivorship
bias where you're asking very smart
people who have done well sure what they
would prefer then maybe you're not
asking people in jail the same question
yeah right now I want to explore the
moral side of things but I'm going to
just State my maybe placeholder
objection that if we frame it as a moral
argument then we take certain lines of
questioning off the table I will just
say my interest in asking that question
is what is it referred to one of you
guys is going to know the Lindy effect
just like the durability of things over
time I just haven't seen much of this so
I'm curious about it actually there
there is some Lindy evidence there's
some Lindy evidence firstly keep in mind
that historically children hit puberty
you know age of 8 9 10 11 12 and they
were adults at that point they were out
conquering Nations and having children
and it's only recently that we moved it
up to 18 and a lot of the struggle of
teenagehood is trying to control an
adult as if they're a child and so you
can already see that it happens at a
certain age then secondly it's not an
All or Nothing thing and Aaron lays this
out in his book which is basically about
where can you start right so for example
I'll say with my children my children
are closer to somewhere being
homeschooled and unschooled and they
wake up when they want and they sleep
relatively when they want and they do
have a lot more permissiveness around
eating and screen time the amount of
screen time they spent is horrific I
think one of my kids was sh the other
day he did eight hours of screen time
that day right which I think most
parents would have a fit in like one day
eight hour screen time that's all he did
so they already have a high level of
permissiveness and I can just say for me
personally that they seem pretty
welldeveloped they're happy they're
healthy they're pretty intelligent and
they seem to do well relative to their
peers they seem to have less Hang-Ups
than I think the average kid would and
they have a lot more freedom but the
good news is you don't have to do this
All or nothing I said all or nothing to
be provocative cuz Aaron's a Believer
he's all the way yeah but you can start
in one area right and so like what's an
example of an area where you could start
Aaron the beauty of truth is you don't
have to rely on somebody's study because
you know people who do studies these
days we know how corrupted they are
right so we know there's a whole class
of people who show up on Twitter and say
Source you know as if that's killing
your argument like you don't Harvard
didn't bless this well Harvard wants
mandatory education at Harvard right so
I can't listen to them they want to
indoctrinate my child so let me turn
around the question on you noal just for
a second because you mentioned early on
you're 30 to 50% Incorporated so what
did you incorporate first I basically
retreated heavily back okay and what I
retreated on was first I'm not very
authoritarian with the kids I never have
been so if they're around me and they
want to eat junk food I just hand them
the junk food and then I'll leave the
room so I'm not that responsible that's
mom's problem yeah exactly so Mom and
other caretakers might be more restrict
but I tend not to be especially around
food especially when I know what a bad
job I personally do with food I'm also
not that restrictive with screen time
basically just you know after 6 p.m.
they get unlimited screen time and I
don't force them to go to school they're
a combination of homeschooled and
unschooled where I would say I am
restrictive is I probably interfere a
lot if they're like fighting if they're
hitting at each other I'm kind of pushy
about like let's go let's go let's hurry
up you know we're late get in the car
that kind of thing I definitely the one
place where I have a big Bugaboo I think
they can get over eating badly as kids
young bodies are very resilient and it
takes a lifetime to figure out how to
eat well and I think they can get over
even socialization and emotional
Hang-Ups and interpersonal conflict all
that stuff has to be handled on its own
and they have to figure it out the two
places where I probably interfere a lot
is one is I insist on math and reading
like you got to do your math and you got
to do your reading if you do your math
and reading then you're a free
individual until then you're a little
slave and you don't get to do what you
want right so I I'm pretty tough there
and the other one is if one of them is
hitting the other then you know that's
to me is a boundary that you don't cross
and I tend to get emotional I tend to
interfere so those are probably the two
places where are most restrictive but I
would say that you know our kids are
closer to wild animals than you know
properly raised children but I will I
will say I think most kids these days
that I run into most of their friends
who are kind of quote unquote normally
raised I wouldn't I wouldn't trade
places our family is a lot more freedom
we get along great with our kids they're
very intelligent they're very
independent they're very capable and
they seem to me as well or better
adjusted than any of their peers not to
put their peers down but I have noticed
that all of their peers tend to have a
way of getting attention from adults and
violating the rules and that could be
anything from I'm having allergic
reaction to I threw up to I'm having a
meltdown to whatever and these are all
attention-seeking Behavior to make to
control adults who are normally not
controllable and our kids seem to have a
lot less of that maybe it's this
anecdotal yeah I would say the same
thing our kids are not wild in fact they
do what we ask them to do they're very
responsive like when my wife asked them
to do something they're not thinking
they don't have like a knee-jerk
defensiveness and they're not trying to
game us as adversaries or
Gatekeepers it's a very authentic you
interaction and they're very polite they
say please and thank you to each other
they you know they bang up against each
other so frequently without us trying to
intervene that they understand each
boundaries they're very
conscientious you know obviously it's a
small sample size and you know there's
plenty of other reasons why that might
be the
case but I would say you know a lot of
people object to removing rules and you
know say that you know that it's
impossible you know a kid will
absolutely fall apart and a few examples
of kids not falling apart I think does
demonstrate that it's possible it's
that that removing rules can result in a
very orderly
structured and yeah I would say polite
kind of rule following way of being I
often say you know that I would rather
that my kids be disobedient
and free and
uneducated than that they're educated
and obedient right because you can
always educate yourself and most of us
who know anything have educ have become
self-learners over time and learning is
always moving Target yeah but that
independent thinking that independent
streak you can't get back everyone I
know who is successful in life has a
strong independent streak no exceptions
question Aaron you said rule following
but this is also Freedom maximizing
parenting philosophy you also mentioned
that if your wife asks for something the
kids will often for lack of better terms
comply so is the teaching then coming
from modeling rather than rules that's
why they say please and thank you it's
not a request it's something that you
are demonstrating and therefore they're
following or are you explaining the
importance of those things and
therefore they end up adopting those
behaviors how is that we explain when we
can but with little kids explaining in
words rarely
works and so I I think a helpful
distinction is you know that it's it's
not that all rules are bad right the
rules of chess the rules of baseball are
great what's great about rules is when
you can opt out of them and adults can
opt out of almost any set of rules rules
that adults can't opt out of are called
laws and laws are very different from
Rules you can upd out of those too
they're just severe consequences
right well you can even stay home right
like a man's house is his castle like
you can you can avoid the laws of the
road the rules of the road and just not
not drive a car you can ride a bike and
walk and but a kid cannot a typical kid
cannot Escape cannot opt out of the rule
of brushing their teeth for example
right when teeth brushing time comes
around mom or dad will hunt them down
and find them and make them brush their
teeth and so that's not really a rule in
the same sense of the rules of Chess
where if you want to say you know let's
play with different pieces let's change
the the way the pieces move right you
can you can adopt those rules or say I
don't want to play chess I'm going to go
do something else so rules are great and
actually a major a huge fan of rules in
fact I'm such a fan of rules that I
don't want to contaminate rules with
this kind of fake or phony set of rules
which are really they're not even laws
right they are arbitrary autocratic
impositions on a child's life and so
forcing a kid to brush their teeth I
think is a disaster people usually think
that you know you have to force rules on
kids right it's a necessary evil you
just have to nobody wants to be a hard
ass but you know when push comes a shove
they just have to brush their teeth
because kids don't know about cavities a
three-year-old doesn't understand the
concept and for their own good right
they would be upset with me later in
life if they have cavities and they said
dad you didn't make me brush my teeth
and now I've got awful teeth they would
be rightfully justifiably upset with me
and so what do you do in that
circumstance the the typical thinking is
that well it's a necessary evil you just
have to make them brush their teeth but
the truth is and this getting to the
epistemology is that a kid that's not
brushing their teeth really that's a
problem and the question is are there
ways to solve this problem that don't
involve me forcing myself on them
forcing the rule on them and you know
with any problem there's there's
multiple Solutions and brushing teeth is
a great example you know what my wife
and I do is we try to explore and
understand what is the nature of this
problem and so maybe the kid isn't
brushing their teeth CU they don't like
the taste of the toothpaste or they
don't like the feel of the toothbrush or
my wife and I'll brush our teeth and
blow our breath in each other's face and
kind of swoon at how you know how good
our breath smells afterward and then
they they want to do that they want to
have good smelling breath they want to
play the breath smelling game we'll take
them to the store and we go to the
toothpaste aisle and let them pick out
you know the PAW Patrol toothpaste and
the Unicorn toothpaste man I need to go
shopping with you that sound great and
then that becomes a whole fun thing like
hey let's go to the store and you're
going to be in charge and let's go to
the toothpaste aisle and and you pick
out all your stuff and and today is
amazing right there's like different
flavors of mouth there's everything so
you know you explore the space of these
Solutions and you you never know when
you can find one can I give you my my
own anecdotes on this that are funny
yeah go for it so with my older son I
actually managed to explain to him the
germ theory of disease we watch YouTube
videos on
little germs eating things and I
convince him that germs going to eat his
teeth if he doesn't brush them so he
brushes them my daughter she's really
young she just sees me flossing all the
time she loves playing with floss it's
that simple so each one has their own
mechanism how to figure it out my middle
son you know he likes the I think it's a
Spider-Man toothbrush so there like a
very particular toothbrush he likes so
he plays with that so there's a
different solution for each one but it
takes time it takes creativity it takes
problem solving and you can't get
exactly what you want you want it well
it also takes another thing is for them
to be open to you nval right if you were
a rule enforcer they want to you keep
like oh [&nbsp;__&nbsp;] it's toothbrushing time
right last thing I want to do is deal
with Dad at toothbrushing time whereas
if you're never that enforcer then the
kid is much more like oh what are you
doing with the floss you know what what
what kind of toothpaste is that they're
much more interested in emulating and
following the modeling when you are not
this arbitrary enforcer I have a rule
for myself with which I do bust my kids
occasionally which I know you don't bust
your kids but I do occasionally bust my
kids but if they come to me with
something that they did
innocently that they didn't think was
wrong but is wrong I never bust them
right CU I don't want to create that
feeling in them like don't go to Dad
right so at least I'm not fully
enlightened here but I'm you know headed
in the direction but let's go to some of
the harder ones let's talk about like
you know eating or screen time those are
the tough ones can I actually I'm going
to go meso zoom in we're going to get to
those but I want to just mention so
Aaron this is my first time having this
conversation with either of you about
this approach to Parenting and what I
like about it is that there's an
examination of the problem right we're
not jumping to Solutions because often
the problem is the way we're looking at
the problem in the first place totally
but I imagine for a lot of people
listening like okay so you have a
bespoke like civil row tailored solution
to every kid that sounds [&nbsp;__&nbsp;]
exhausting when if the kid's refusing to
wear gloves and it's freezing outside
just put on your [&nbsp;__&nbsp;] gloves because
I tell you to put them on and I'm also I
guess as segue from that coming back to
this creativity over coercion and when I
think of creativity I actually think of
the power of constraints not a complete
lack of constraints totally that's my
personal experience and the experience
of a lot of people I interview so how do
you how do you reconcile these things or
think about any of those all right let
me do the gloves first and then the
constraints second yeah so yes it's a
lot of work kid wants to go outside and
doesn't want to wear their mittens right
and and you're going to be dealing with
a kid melting down because their hands
are cold and you know totally irrational
seeming three-year-old screaming but
also won't put the mittens on even when
their hands are cold um and that's a
nightmare and I'm not I'm not pretending
that that's not a nightmare but the
investment
upfront pays off in the long run because
once a kid understands what mittens are
for and has no confusion about mittens
are because mom makes me put the mittens
on right mittens are because hand cold
hands sucks and I'll wear my mittens
once a kid understands that the Mitten
problem is solved and you never have to
lecture them about getting ready and
what they wear and it's that over and
over and over again you know the first
times through it is more work there's no
question about it exploring the problem
trying to understand my daughter brushes
her teeth like boom my son to pretty
much the three older kids brush their
teeth just on their own once a problem
gets solved to the kids's own
understanding it's solved for the rest
of their life it's also now part of an
explanatory framework that you can build
upon yes rules don't connect to each
other the only way rules connect to each
other is Dad or Mom say so whereas
knowledge it's it's a framework of
understanding so once you understand
you're brushing your teeth because the
germs then you also understand why you
should shower and why you should use
soap and why you should change your
underwear and all those things why you
take medicine why you cover your mouth
when you cough exactly it all builds
right they all go together and so the
sooner you can teach your kids that
knowledge the better but there's an age
I would argue with Aaron like there's a
certain age which she just doesn't
register no no because the other part of
it is that you are the guide right Dad
is someone who helps me right Dad is
never someone who busts my ball balls
dad is never an adversary dad is always
a guide and a participant in this
knowledge accumulation process and he
helps give me the knowledge that helps
me solve my problems and avoid you know
getting sick or avoid getting a sunburn
or bug bites or whatever it is it not
only Builds on itself the knowledge
itself but the relationship with your
parents gets stronger and that's why I'm
saying you know when we ask our kids to
do something they they trust us they you
know they know that we have their best
interest at heart not simply because we
tell them but because they they see it
and experience it so you have a trusted
guide who you kind of understand that
we're all in this project together of
like figuring out life and avoiding
suffering and pursuing interests and
pursuing joy and developing passions
there was an old book called The
Scientist and the crib the title is so
good that I think the book is very
popular because everyone wants to view
their child as a little scientist even
though they treat them like the convict
in the crib right like you can do
exactly what I say when I tell you to
but I think there there's a struggle
people say well I don't want to be my
kid's best friend they have friends I
have to be a parent and then they kind
of think through well what does that
mean to be a parent and the reality is I
I think most people would have preferred
more Independence when they were kids so
why not start trying to give it to your
kids and doing the explanation but the
explanations are hard I mean it's it
takes a lot of upfront work I will grant
that let me ask you this Noel do you
think people in retrospect well for
instance like coercion versus
non-coercion there isn't really a
universe in which most people would find
a positive connotation with coercion
right so if someone says functional
medicine they don't want to go to a
non-functional right doctor right so
it's like well it's it's a bit of a not
a semantic trick but you can't really
reasonably take the opposite position so
I'm wondering do you think that most
people who say I wish I had more freedom
when I was a kid are recall falling
completely enough or accurately enough
to make that judgment there's certain
things where you can argue the opposite
you so I'll take the other side you know
for a moment to challenge aon's
philosophy like I think brain plasticity
is a thing right like if you don't learn
your math or your music or your
languages when you're young it's a lot
harder to learn than when you're older
and they're building blocks so you know
my kid may be interested in some Physics
thing like oh what why is the sunlight
going this way or why is there a quarter
moon instead of a half moon I start
trying to explain it but if he does
doesn't have the basics in Geometry or
math because he skipped all of that then
he'll lose interest before I can get him
interested enough to figure out the math
if you're trying to figure out basic
math when you're 19 it's pretty late in
the game like you're going to have a
hard time same thing with literacy and
reading if you never learn how to put
words together and read then when you
finally are interested and I point you
to the book you can't read it and you're
not going to climb that Hill from zero
to figure it out so I'm kind of stuck on
that one I think I would call it
literacy numeracy and computer literacy
are the three things that I really want
my kids to have and and those three to
me are foundational building blocks and
everything else they can learn on their
own interest and in their own time so
Aaron are there any non-negotiables like
nals that he mentioned perhaps these
fundamental building blocks that you
have reserved outside the scope of The
Sovereign John and by the way there's a
physical equivalence too so so I think
the three that people fall down on if I
may well okay there's actually a lot but
there's brain plasticity around learning
there's habits you know habits are a big
thing there's social cues around not
hitting people or getting to fights and
knowing how to socialize there's body
plasticity you know I ate poorly when I
was a kid so therefore those bad habits
follow me forever and my body remembers
all the damage that I did to it you know
my there's something about like the
number of fat cells you know whenever
goes down the size can go down I don't
know how true that is so there's kind of
all these things that are viewed as
irreversible and it gets all the way to
the most extreme of the kid runs in the
street and gets hit by a car because you
were too permissive as a parent yeah
right so there's a Litany of fears but I
think there is a specific thing around
these things that you have to learn when
you're young because you can't change
when you're older or you can't learn
them when you're older so a bunch of
points of this first let's say that's
true right there's these non-negotiable
things that still raises the question of
how how do you get your kids to learn
these things right if math is essential
you could put a gun to your kids head
and say you're learning math right right
and so we could recognize that that
would be a bad idea yeah wait I got to I
got to try no never mind oh I never
thought of that creative problem solving
here it is bro problem solving Jordan
Peterson has a a popular thing where
he's saying that you you know you don't
let your kid behave in a way that makes
you not like them and like boy that
really sounds important but you know how
do you make the kid do that and that is
the problem is that there is no way to
make a kid turn out in any particular
way every method of making a kid do
something brings in a whole host of
costs right every time you're bringing
in coersion you're not making a kid
necessarily do something what you're
doing is you are raising the costs of
them doing something else right if you
want them to learn math you have to
raise the costs of them playing video
games or playing baseball or doing
whatever else it is and so is there a
way for them to learn math that doesn't
involve you raising the costs of them
doing doing something else right and and
the answer is yes there's infinite
number of ways to solve any problem
there's ways of making math fun there's
ways of just making it fun making games
and you know you can go through all the
different apps and you hear about all
this kind of stuff right in that sense
this philosophy by the way is very
active parenting so to the people who
think this might just be neglect it's
the opposite I would say it requires way
more time investment way more creativity
way more upfront in one way yeah
managing kids with a lot of rules is a
ton of
work this is a lot of work but also when
it works it opens up a huge amount of
free time that does seem like feel free
to refute this but a parenting approach
that is perhaps limited to the educated
Elite with enough time to operate from
first principles and approach things
this way which is not to negate the
value of it because I think that there
are probably bits and pieces that people
can apply so there are versions of this
that have been done in schools by the
way there's a very famous book called
summerh Hill about a school in the UK I
forget when maybe it's still around but
it got famous long time ago but it was
very permissive schooling where the kids
ran the school they decided if they want
to go to class or not the teachers were
just at the same peer level as the kids
and were resources for the kids now
these were slightly older kids you know
but not that much older they were I
think there were kids in summerh Hill
who were like 678 years old and it was
very very permissive it's almost the
school equivalent of taking children
seriously or Sovereign child kind of
philosophies so it has been done in even
a caregiver context what happened
supposedly incredibly successful piggy
didn't get killed with with a big rock
off the cliff I'm just I'm just kidding
it's for the same reason that like you
know anything that goes against the
institutions doesn't get absorbed by the
institutions right yeah sure sure
anything that is status lowering for the
people in power tends not to get adopted
by people in power that's common thing
but look yeah nothing can work for
everybody I think there are some general
principles out of here that are worth
thinking through and challenging like I
said I've gone through Aaron's arguments
in his book and I have adopted some of
them and my wife and I were talking
about how we're going to try some more
of them you know because if it works
it's actually better for everybody I am
now much more keenly aware of some
things you know it's like some things
you learn about and then you become more
keenly aware of things as a result so
I'm much more keenly aware how almost
every conflict with a child is about a
negotiation they're negotiating for
something because you have a rule and
then you're playing little king or
dictator arbitrary renegotiating the
rule on the Fly and then they go off and
to the other parent they try to
renegotiate the rule if they didn't like
your result or they try to figure out
how to work around it and when you start
noticing that and you realize how much
of your life is in negotiating rules and
creating rules and routing around rules
and how many interactions around that
you start developing a distaste for it
right it's like if you didn't used to
brush your teeth and floss like twice or
three times a day when you get used to
that feeling of clean teeth then you'll
notice when there's a film on your teeth
but until you get to that point you
don't notice there's a film on your
teeth right so or like if you're aware
of your monkey mind right you meditate
then you start noticing like oh my
thoughts are running away but before you
started meditating you never notice when
your thoughts are running away that's
just normal so now when you're aware of
how much of this is about creating rules
for them to follow rules that by the way
you would never inflict in anybody else
ever out of love out of hate out of
anything and that's a good litmus test
that Aaron lays out which is like if you
wouldn't do it to your spouse if you
wouldn't speak that way to your spouse
don't speak that way to your
child so you you become more aware and
as you become more aware you will
automatically make changes is my point
like youut say you know what I don't
want to be negotiating a rule with you
here's the thing here's the reason I'm
telling you to do it take it or leave it
man but here's the reason like let's
just make sure you understand my
reasoning and if you don't agree fine do
what you want but I do find there's
certain yeah context and ages that that
works better at so the reason I wanted
to have this conversation also is
because I've said this before I think it
was from the documentary objectified
which is about industrial design and it
was maybe smart design could have been
frog design but they said the the
designing for the extremes informs the
mean but not vice versa right
so I like that you aarin are effective
an edge case right who's implemented
this to the nth degree and the hope of
having you on the show especially with
nval is that people can take even one or
two things for instance if they just
take don't speak to your child in a way
you wouldn't speak to your spouse like
that is a valuable principle that could
take a million different forms right or
like if you're solving lots of similar
problems maybe there's a meta problem
you can solve once right like the
bacteria theory of disease or something
or The Germ theory of disease for
instance I assume you're probably in
touch with other people in the not just
the critical rationalism Community but
in The Sovereign child and taking
children seriously communities what are
some of the common wins meaning things
that work better than folks may have
expected and then things that are
particularly challenging for folks that
you see not necessarily across the board
but as a pattern the hardest thing is
sibling conflict I think that's the
that's the hardest thing because I can't
let my you know my six-year-old beat up
my four-year-old y right and there's a
wide range of aggression between you
know a harsh word and you know
physically pounding someone's face
in you can block the the physical blows
but there's still a lot of harshness
going back and forth is very unpleasant
it's very disruptive to everybody else
and just kind of sit back and say well
you know I don't want to course anybody
is not a good
option you know when I'm interacting
oneon-one with my kids I can think of
solutions and Creative Solutions and
stuff when my two kids are interacting
with each other neither of them have the
background knowledge to be able to solve
their problems often and so it's very
hard to not insert myself into that and
confuse that issue but also prevent them
from from spiraling out of control and
so some things that I do to deal with
that is I'll physically
block you know when they're trying to
fight I'll just get in the way and block
the blows and kind of let the yelling
but prevent any kind of physical injury
and another big tip is to always give a
kid a place to opt out and this kind of
goes across the board you know if any of
our kids want to get away from things
they can go to their room and close the
door and just be alone and you know this
is a almost a sacred right for adults
but kids routinely have zero privacy and
giving them the option of privacy gives
them the option to opt out of almost
and really just avoid a ton of coercion
avoid the relationship damage that comes
from just being forced to be face to
face with somebody
that you are struggling with so I think
that would be the biggest challenge you
had some good points on this in in your
book where one was like make sure that
the kids have clear ownership they're
not forced to share things just like you
don't force adults to like really share
new things you don't force the kids
either they can trade they can negotiate
but they have clear ownership and I
actually just use this today two items
arrived at the house today it was a set
of Uno cards and a Pokemon box and I
gave one to each boy and I assigned
ownership and I said you can trade and
you can negotiate but there's clear
ownership otherwi if they're sharing
it's an infinite tug of war right when
kids are fighting they're really
negotiating boundaries with each other
and you as a parent always show up late
and then do you want to get involved in
the middle of an adjudication and A good
rule of thumb is like well would you do
that with two adults if your brother and
your sister were fighting would you show
up in the middle and start adjudicating
you know no if they started hitting each
other you probably stop them right so
kind of the similar rules apply you
don't if they're hitting each other you
get in the way and you're like hey hey
hey like I don't feel good about this
but on the other hand if they're having
an argument you let them have the
argument you wouldn't assert yourself
yeah if it's really loud and disruptive
you might say hey I'm in the house and
you two are being very disruptive I'm
going to go elsewhere you go elsewhere
but just keep it down settle your
dispute but keep it down so I think the
framework of trying to treat them like
adults whenever possible and just it's
better to think of them as adults who
don't have the full range of knowledge
you know maybe they're still developing
their powers of reasoning because they
don't have the full infrastructure of
logic built up but let me ask you this I
think a decent amount and I you know
I've spoken to friends of mine with kids
who are now I've seen them go through
high school college Etc and in some of
families they and even the kids
themselves dislike consolation prizes
right like everyone competes everyone
wins it's not a reflection of real life
when ultimately people get out into the
so learning to compete and all the
friction and maybe disappointment that
entails is important and I suppose I'm
wondering if you're training your kids
to question everything and come to their
own conclusions perhaps maybe and sure
understand the root kind of reasoning
around things but do you expect your
kids to be fully entrepreneurs and
that's that like they kind of create
their own Utopia as the founder of a
company because otherwise like Aaron I
would imagine at a hospital there plenty
of rules right and so how do you teach
someone to live in a world without rules
in the household maybe I'm misc
characterizing that you could tell me
and then enter a world where there are
lots of rules you know how much of a
rule breaker I am and how antisocial I
am so I'm fully fine with my kids not
having friends not getting along not
being liked not fitting in I think
that's a superpower it's a bonus Aaron
will come to you so perfect right I
think the rules of courtesy are a great
example right like being able to
interact with people courteously with
you know conscientiously being polite
and there's kind of two approaches to
that you can force your kids to be
polite all the time in which case they
never really understand why right they
don't understand graciousness and
gratitude they don't understand the
subtleties of those things and so
they're kind of hamfisted when they're
out in the world whereas if if the focus
is on the reasons for being polite right
if you never force them to be polite and
instead introduce them to the the
Concepts you know like we use please and
thank you all the time with our kids we
ask them to do things we never force
them we never command them to do things
and so conscientiousness you know my
wife and I talk with each other in the
same way that we talk with our kids in
terms of conscientiousness and they
understand again not on an explicit
level but in an intuitive way what these
words are for and how they work just
like they learn all the other words in
the language and so when they go into
world you know everybody thinks their
kids are great but my kids are I think
they're quite conscientious they say
please and thank you they'll say things
to their grandparents their extended
family the neighborhood
friends they actually interact with them
I would say more adult or more mature
than you would expect that the opposite
of Ferell they're never trying to
manipulate people they're never playing
mind games they're never defensive
they're instead just much more authentic
and and I think that's what the thing is
that that it's always the reason
that matter the most and when you're
forcing your kids to do certain things
you're saying essentially that the
reason doesn't matter this is so
important that I don't care what you
think about it you're doing it you are
you are depriving them of the
opportunity to learn the reason and in
place of that opportunity to learn the
reason you are inserting your
own you know Authority as the reason but
you know when they go out into the world
you're not there so now what's the
reason reason for being conscientious
and polite so all the other rules about
the world right and this gets to your
point about
constraints this is really a deep and I
think fascinating idea is that knowledge
is actually a
constraint you know the discovery of DNA
constrained the ideas around how
biological organisms reproduce it's not
about the humors it's not about the
vital force it's this one molecule and
so that is an enormous stepped forward
and scientists stopped looking for other
things because they had the knowledge of
DNA and then once you learn DNA and you
learn cellular structures and cellular
organel all of these things further
constrain you know how life works it
works by cells and oh wow it's not just
you know it's these little structures
within cells or physics for example
right Newton discovers the laws of
motion right those are constraints on
how the world works and then Einstein
fine-tunes them and so as knowledge
progresses the constraints get Tighter
and Tighter and Tighter and knowledge
really rules out a lot of things a human
mind does not just take explanations if
that were the case then I could just sit
on the other end of chat GPT and get
everything I needed and I'd be brilliant
no we have to recreate in our minds we
have to fit it into our existing network
of theories we have to falsify it for
ourselves we have to test it we have to
see how it fits into our other theories
and explanations and carry it with some
degree of certainty or some tentative
pseudo probability of whether it's true
or not and so it's this discovery
scientific process all the time so when
my kids are unhappy for example I you
know I try to like help them out but I'm
like hey why are you making yourself
unhappy it's like a hint like maybe
maybe there's not anything in
environment that's making you un happy
maybe that's your reaction or if they
ask me something I'll be like well let's
guess why why do we think that might be
the case what's a guess oh okay well why
might that not be true and a lot of
times they deflect me because there's
Dad playing condescending scientists
which I know it shouldn't be
right like it's patronizing I wouldn't
talk to my spouse that way so I'm
already violating TCS but you know I'm
trying to do this knowledge creation
thing and you know it's actually really
fun so for a parent one of the most
gratifying things is when you get to
connect with your child and discover
something together and my kids are
already contradicting me they'll say
well you promis you do that yesterday
and you didn't do it today so you broke
your promise Dad right or they'll say
hey you know you said this but I think
that's wrong it's actually this and that
is very gratifying to a parent like from
anybody else your ego would actually get
hurt if they said you're wrong when your
child says you're wrong and they're
correct your ego actually gets a boost
you feel better that's the weird thing
about having children that's the genes
in charge rather than the body feels
great so when this approach works it is
incredibly gratifying oh man I guess
what I'm struggling with is that
maximizing freedom is necess necessary
to teach your children from first
principles it strikes me as absolutist
in a way I guess I mean because I know
scientists and writers who who will do
what you're describing nval but they're
not going to have a Willy Wonka sweets
delight schmorgesborg at children
grasping level in the house right but
they'll each have different sets of
rules for themselves yeah you do this
you interview all these over performers
tools Titans you compile all their
habits have you found any commonalities
is there a single morning routine you
would get to everybody no no no no
exactly there isn't a single way to do
it is there even a single creativity
routine you would give everybody no
would you say okay you journal for an
hour you meditate for half an hour you
do your cold plunge you block off a 4H
hour block at time that's how you get
things done I wouldn't however for
people who have not reached escape
velocity I would say there are some very
common effective starting points if
you're cultivating the tree dish from
stage zero then I would say yeah there
are some conditions that tend to produce
better outcomes right so why not
approach it with your kids the same way
you approach it with your audience why
not say here's a set of techniques that
seem to work here's what works for me
I'm trying this what which one do you
want to try yeah right but the reality
is the kids also have very different
motivations they're in discovery mode
they're in play mode they're not in
productivity mode a lot of our routines
that work well for us that we have built
for ourselves they're not appropriate
for the child cu the child just wants
completely different things most of the
times a child just wants to play and
discover and live in the moment and in
that sense they're here to teach us as
as much or more than we are to teach
right if you spend your whole parenting
time teaching your child you missed it
yeah maybe it was the other way around
it you know it's a really hard problem
it's unfalsifiable too but I would say
that the beauty of this approach is that
our current model puts a lot of pressure
in the parents to control the kids and
the kids end up with very controlled
lives and I actually had my 8-year-old
come to me the other day and he said Hey
Dad I'm I'm overscheduled I'm really
scheduled he did it to me twice Apple
doesn't fall far from the tree right
right and I sympathize with that because
I'm famously unscheduled so first he
comes up to me he says I'm really over
schedule and my initial solution this
was a few months back was I went to my
wife and I said he's over scheduled
let's just cut all these classes and all
this stuff right just let him be free
he's almost hit puberty by the time it's
puberty I don't want him to resent us I
want him to have some agency and he can
figure it out so cuts the schedule so
now he came to me again a few days ago
and he said I'm over schedule so now
channeling my inner Aaron I just said
figure it out you solve it right and
what happened I don't
know Next Level agency maybe he'll come
to me now and he'll say okay I tried to
solve it and this worked this didn't do
you have any ideas dad I rescheduled all
my commitments in your calendar yeah
exactly all right so Aaron I appreciate
you putting up with all the the
cross-examining no it's great it's
because I'm interested and I appreciate
that you are experimenting with all this
stuff that's why I'm here I want to do a
thought experiment which is let's Flash
Forward 10 or 15 years your kids are
much older and you look back and you say
I think if I were to do it again maybe I
would do a b or c differently like if
you had to pick some subset of what
you're doing as part of this parenting
approach if something were to not turn
out as well as perhaps the conventional
let's just call it approach what might
those things be oh
gosh I mean my kids spend an enormous
amount of time on YouTube and so I guess
I would look at the things that are the
biggest outliers compared to typical
kids and the biggest outliers are
YouTube sleep isn't even an outlier I
think they sleep probably the same as
kids the other big outlier is how much
sugary junk food snacks they eat and the
last one is some of their social Dynamic
is is very different those would be the
things I would guess would be the things
that didn't turn out well I want to
honor the sense of your question and
really explore this a bit you know what
would I what would I want to have done
differently I guess I would want to have
been more conventional you know but it
wouldn't even be setting the limits
because I really I really really am
happy with the trusting open
relationship I have have with my kids
and so I don't think that's worth the
price I wouldn't burn the capital of the
trust I have with my kids for almost any
outcome it would have to be pretty dire
for me to for me to say it' be worth
sacrificing some amount of trust with my
kids a quick example is sunscreen you
know when my daughter was three she
didn't want to put the sunscreen on and
it's like a really sunny day and we we
going to be outside in the sun all day
and the thought crossed my mind that I
just have to force this issue because I
can't allow her to damage her skin or
you know develop a skin condition later
on but I you know took a pause and
figured out a way for her to wear the
sunscreen non coercively actually I
explained she was putting bug spray on
at the time and I asked her why she was
applying the bug spray and she said well
I don't want to get bug bites and I said
oh well I said do you know what this
sunscreen is four and I said it's to
avoid getting Burns and she took the sun
screen out of my hand and applied it
herself and the thought was that even if
she didn't do that I would rather her
get a sunburn that day and preserve the
trust this trusting relationship that
gives me an opportunity tomorrow to
explain to her or connect with her in a
way of why the sunscreen is worth it in
other words I think there's an amount of
capital that you want to treasure and
preserve as much as possible
and that's one way of looking at it the
other thing of looking back and having
regrets is that there are different ways
to solve it I would say you know the
let's say the eating thing right I guess
one thing I I wish I would do now is
spend more time I I hate cooking I
cannot stand it but I wish I spent more
time learning how to cook and learning
how to prepare foods that are not junk
foods and exploring with my kids more of
the range of available Foods out there
and finding something that is you know
fits more the Norms of healthy food alth
I have my criticisms of what that means
but there are other things and some of
my kids are have a very narrow range of
of of what they eat so that's how I
would approach these regrets is that I
wish I spent some more time exploring
the space of potential Solutions not
saying boy I should have just laid down
the law in that area I I really do
reject that because I just do not want
to insert myself as an adversary it's
not just my relationship but it's the
confusion that it causes about the issue
right if eating is important then I
don't want to confuse them about food if
socialization is important then I don't
want to confuse them about how to deal
others you know if what you pay
attention to is important in terms of
screens and whatnot I don't want to make
you know a kid's attention about my
expectations or something else another
way to think about it is for most people
who are listening to this their kids
kids are going to school and in school
they're in a rule-bound authoritarian
environment so are none of your kids
going to school correct I wouldn't say
our kids are homeschooled they're closer
to unschooled okay Define what that
means for folks so homeschooled is you
know when you're actively working them
through a curriculum and you're making
them sit through classes at home and you
maybe you have a little pod or a group
and we've tried variations of that and
you know we have some tutoring some drop
in classes and I do a lot of math
teaching but by a lot I mean like 15
minutes three times a week yeah wow I'm
impressing them all [&nbsp;__&nbsp;] up your
schedule well it's not a schedule it's
just arbitrary but I would say that you
know they're they're actually doing
pretty well on the things that I care
about which is basic literacy basic
numeracy not perfect I wish they were
better but there's a lot of screen time
involved a lot of YouTube involved but
yeah they don't go to school and by the
way the stats on homeschool are amazing
like people who actively actually
homeschool they're kids are one to two
years ahead of even private school you
know private school kids are ahead of
public school but the wild stats are
unschooled there are kids who are
literally never go to school or never
educated at home and there are cases of
when these kids kind of show up and
they're usually only one year behind
public schooling I think that's an
indictment of public schooling now is
that an indictment of public schooling
or is that an endorsement of really
really really overachieving parents who
happen to be able to choose on schooling
so there's always confounding factors
but the interesting thing is these kids
who are unschooled when they decide they
want to go to college for whatever
reason yeah it takes them one year to
catch C up so instead of the whole K
through 12 it takes them one year to
catch up that's insane right you can
skip all of k12 and catch up in one year
and if you go back to how much you
remember from K12 what was important it
can be compressed down a lot there's a
lot of wasted
time anyway my original point was that
your kids are already being subjected to
an authoritarian environment most of the
time most of the day right most of the
days the week most of the time so if you
loosen up a little bit at home you can
practice and and take a little bit of
pressure off and you shouldn't have to
worry that your kids are you know
they're they're running around too
rule-free and I'm not blaming the school
system because it's the nature of crowd
control and you used to be a public
school teacher Aaron you got to crowd
control 153 unruly kids and they're just
running around you have to go lowest
common denominator you have to issue
rules it's like a stewardess trying to
control a plane flight you know that's
been going on too long or a plane that's
been stuck in the runway they tell you
to put on your seat Bel not cuz you're
end danger it's because they're they're
doing crowd control so a lot of school
is just crowd control all right so
questions for you eron I'm going to come
back to the junk food but since we're
talking about school and the lack of
school let's just say structured
external school look I talk to sort of
overachievers for a living right A lot
of them do homeschooling or
unschooling not seeing your kids but
some of their kids are arrogant
precocious [&nbsp;__&nbsp;] and very
unsocialized right how do you spot check
that your kids are going to be able to
function in society and just to
preemptively catch this Nal that does
not mean rule following sheep who just
obey I hear arrogant precocious [&nbsp;__&nbsp;]
and I view that as a compliment pick
up yeah but Nal also you've built
companies you need to interact with
folks you need to hire folks you need to
blah blah blah blah blah right yeah so
I'm just wondering Aaron like how you
are thinking about or even within this
community of people who are taking
children seriously and trying to put the
principles of the Sovereign child into
practice how do you suggest people think
about this how do you think about it the
quickest answer is I had five kids yeah
so I have a built-in socialization
schema right you have a soccer team
close to it yeah yeah and I was a little
skeptical about this but as my older
kids get older they have very astute
very subtle understanding of the other
day they came across a box that was from
my wife from her childhood and they
opened it up and they were playing
around and they realized the the
5-year-old realized and they brought it
into us and the 5-year-old was saying
like oh we found this box from the olden
days and we realized maybe we shouldn't
be in this and you know maybe we
shouldn't be playing with this stuff and
that incredible and things like that
happen all the time he understood
completely on his own without us ever
lecturing them about this kind of thing
he just kind of understood that oh wow
this this might actually not be
appropriate and this is somebody else's
stuff and we're kind of just rumaging
through playing but this might be like
their private possession so I think a
lot of the subtleties of conscientious
interactions can come from siblings and
parents and extended family and we live
in a neighborhood we've got a bunch of
age match kids you know like immediately
next door and
surrounding properties so they interact
with other kids quite frequently mhm was
where you landed by Design being around
those types of families or was that just
coincidental no we we were very
intentional about where we moved and we
were initially going to live more
rurally because you know my wife and I
our sensibility is a bit more you know
pastoral but my wife realized that it's
going to be a little lonely not having
neighbors and I was like oh my God you
know I I skew toward Nal like I don't I
really prefer I enjoy being alone but
for our kids sake we chose a much more
residential area and and couldn't be
happier with that yeah to be fair I like
being alone in cities I actually live in
cities I like being around lots of
people just not having to
socialize I would say for our kids
socialization you know I think kids are
overs socialized these days yes our kids
also socialize with video games the best
kinds of socialization or more natural
forms of socialization when they're
socializing across ages you know there
isn't this artificial segregation of
third grade doesn't mingle with fourth
grade doesn't mingle with fifth grade
kids social with adults a lot but I do
think for example when they want to
start dating it's going to be a real
issue they're going to want access to
the opposite sex and for that we're
going to have drop in classes and things
of that nature and you know maybe like
Little they'll join like Neighborhood
Activity groups that are you know
playing ball or playing games or you
know playing tennis or swimming or
whatever yeah I think about school can
you imagine as an adult being forced in
the workplace let's say to be confined
with another person who is overtly
hostile you know I mean I know school is
different than when I was a kid but it's
still considered fine to be on a school
bus with people who want to beat you up
and try to beat you up and that's you
know you're supposed to just kind of
deal with that where as an adult with 40
years of experience with other people
that is unacceptable but a kid who
doesn't even know how to deal with other
people to treat that as like some sort
of learning ground is crazy because they
don't have the background know and by
the way I'm not saying that's the
Exemplar sure right I'm not saying you
are actually to put a point on that you
remember Lully she's a friend of David
do She interviewed him and she was
raised homeschool very smart precocious
young lady I don't I don't know how well
she is but she's definitely younger than
me but she's very smart and she was
interviewing David and she brought up
the story of her homeschooling
experience and exactly to this point she
mentioned how she would go out with
other girls and hang out with some
neighbor Hood boys and she would watch
how they would all Bully each other but
they would never bully her and her I
think her sister or other homeschool kid
because they knew that the homeschool
kids are there optionally they can leave
any time whereas the other kids they're
bullying they're going to have no choice
but to go to school tomorrow and all be
together cell block D exactly exactly
where else do you do it it's in prison
right so you get bullying in prison and
in schools you think of it the cyber
bullying also right like concern about
the kids being on the tablet so much and
social media and they're exposed to
cyber bullying how much cyber bullying
is derived from being in school right if
you take the school element out of it
how could you cyber bully somebody on
Facebook right you just like I'm I'm not
dealing with you anymore Aaron how do
you think about recognizing that the
school bus getting your head smashed
into the seat is different from most of
hopefully adult life how do you think
about building resilience your kids so
that they can deal with hostiles they
can deal with mob mentality they can
deal because they will have to
presumably unless they're in some Tower
with their private tutors as like the
air parent to the throne or something so
how do you think about building
resilience and and specifically I mean
like social human resilience
interpersonal resilience this is one of
the main critiques and I think this is
one of perhaps the main benefit of this
approach is that resilience comes comes
from Passion it comes from an interest
right when someone is just absolutely
obsessed with some problem they have the
fortitude right the stick tutiven
nothing nothing approaches The Stick
tutiven of somebody who is just hellbent
on achieving something building
something creating something and without
that understanding and interest and
then then resilience is just about
appeasing others right it's about
checking boxes so if you're in school
and you're trying to you know do well in
science you're trying to do well in
science to get a grade it's completely
different from trying to understand
science so that you can make your robot
work or you can make your starlink
satellites fly sure agre and so if
you're talking about resilience with
other people I think probably the most
important thing is self
assuredness and nothing damages I would
guess nothing damages self-confidence
and self assurance than giving kids a
reason to doubt themselves and that is
one of the four
pernicious harms of rules is that a kid
learns you know lollipops you know I'm
tempted by lollipops my inner nature
wants lollipops something about me is
bad because I want this forbidden thing
I want to use YouTube and and that's bad
right it's it's eight hours it's too
much you know kids that want to use
YouTube for more than an hour are are
bad bad they're addicted they're you
know these vulnerable fragile people
that can't be trusted around iPads and
video games and they can't be trusted
around chocolate bars and they can't be
trusted around all of these things that
they just want more and more and more
and more of and so it tells a kid that
their inner nature their wants and
desires are dangerous and that they need
someone policing that right and when
you're a kid you need your parent to
police it right you need your parent to
take the ice cream away otherwise you're
just going to eat ice cream all day long
you need your parent to take your tablet
away and ultimately the conventional
view is that the policing from the
parent shifts over to being policing of
yourself you're self-conscious you're
self-aware you're doubting yourself all
the time and now you are I think fragile
when you step out into the wider world
because you are worried about your
appearance you're worried about what
other people are thinking about you
whereas if you instead are confident in
yourself you're not afraid of your inner
nature you're not afraid that you're
going to get yourself in trouble you
don't think that your own interests are
frivolous and disposable you don't think
that you're distracted right you know oh
my gosh I'm going to spend all day on on
Twitter I'm prone to being addicted to X
if you don't see yourself as that then
you have a much more authentic
engagement with things and you're not
worried about what other people think
and you're not trying to you're not
trying to present some alternate Persona
to other people I think that's how so
many of us get into trouble is that we
live our lives via of persona with
others and I think rules give kids a
reason to present a false Persona to
their parents right like every kid movie
every great kid movie is like the kids
are you know doing their thing and the
parents are saying uh and the kids are
kind of appeasing the parents like oh no
no we're doing our homework we're doing
this and then really like as soon as
they turn their back we're going to go
and off and do the fun thing right and
it's a given that kids leave these dual
lives and they present a false Persona
to their parents that's like an accepted
thing yeah but I think it's a disaster
for their own self-confidence I think
it's a disaster for the parents because
kids are entering into this kind of dark
Contraband world where they're keeping
their parents in the dark and that's
when they're interested in sex and drugs
and all this dangerous stuff and that in
fact you know rules Drive kids to hide
things from their parents hide things
from themselves and make them again I
would say vulnerable and and
self-conscious I agree with that last
statement I want to come back to junk
food as promised just because I'm
imagining putting myself in my like
5-year-old shoes and I'm just like man I
used to go to the the Penny Candy Store
and walk in and it was just this
Cornucopia of delights but if nal's
description is accurate that there's
plenty of junk food and it's oh yeah
deliberately engineered to be easy
access for the kids I want to understand
the reasoning behind this is this
because the underlying belief is that if
you do the opposite you are training
kids to have an unhealthy relationship
with food absolutely I guess what is the
rationale behind it and what is the
evidence for that rationale yeah the
rationale is number one I'm a gatekeeper
right I don't want to be a gatekeeper
there's harms of being a gatekeeper and
all the false Persona and all that kind
of stuff I don't want my kids trying to
get around me sneak food I don't want to
be the obstacle that'd be just number
one M number two I mean I don't eat
lollipops I have like a lollipop
occasionally and I'll have one and the
reason why is cuz your tongue gets raw
it starts to taste gross after a while
and I don't eat a whole bag of lollipops
because a whole bag of lollipops is not
a pleasant experience and so I want my
kids to learn that same exact thing this
is a couple years ago but it was really
funny I had a bag of lollipops for
whatever reason and I was handing them
out one at a time and then I just you
know the kids I like it's dumb that they
have to ask me for a lollipop so I just
dumped them all on the floor there's a
pile of lollipops and the three-year-old
was pulling off the wrapper and licking
them and putting I got a bowl for her
cuz I don't want Lolli sticky lollipop
all over the floor so I got her a bowl
she was just trying each flavor and she
had like 20 licked lollipops in a bowl
and then she got bored of it yeah and
then she went off and I kept the bowl I
just left it there and it was there for
days what she had done was discover what
I already know when I discovered is that
lollipops are gross after a
while one thing we do for fun is we go
to the gas station and they pick out
candy which it's like let's go get a
treat at the gas station and it's it's
fun trip and out we go and it gets us
out in the world and there's fun
interesting things that happen like
paying and here's my credit card and how
do you swipe the credit card and how
much does this cost and like real
knowledge starts to happen but they'll
buy like a bag of Swedish Fish yeah and
I'm like great we could be spending
money on a museum or something we're
going to spend money on Swedish fish
today right and the scream of things
it's not all that expensive and they'll
have a whole bag and they'll start
eating them right in the car and by the
time they get home every single time
they've eaten like five Swedish Fish and
then the bag just sits there and I leave
the bag there it's not like I hide it
now I'll just leave it out in the open
and it'll get just get neglected for
days and eventually I throw it out
because it's just gets stale and and
gross let's say at the gas station your
kid is like I want a Five Hour Energy
and then the other one's like I want a
Corona like what do you do so great well
the corona is easy because that tastes
gross so I let them i' let them try the
corona totally okay all right the 5H
Hour Energy is a problem so Kid Likes
Diet Coke they haven't they haven't had
an interest in 5-hour Energy if it was
early in the day I'd totally let them
shrink the five-hour energy but if it's
if it's late at night I might let them
try it I would definitely let them try
it and see how much they drank M and I
would be very interested in what they
like about the 5H Hour Energy in other
words maybe they would like the color of
the bottle because they don't know what
it is so the question would be what
interests you about this how can I
better understand what has attracted you
so if my kid wanted a Corona I'd be very
interested in how how the hell they got
interested in a Corona right yeah that
opens it up right there you don't want
to distance yourself from their interest
in a coronin right if my kids's
interested in heroin I really really
want to know exactly how they came right
but you can understand why they're
interested without saying true you can
try some heroin let's see how much you
use right yeah there's a lot of ways to
deal with it but some of them are better
than others so what I would want them to
do is not feel bad about themselves for
being interested in this thing I don't
want them to think that their interests
are dang
dous and what I really want to do is
find out how I can supply them with what
they're trying to get in a way that is
safe and doesn't make me freak out so
for example Diet Coke my son loves Diet
Coke which son how old is he well he's
five now but he's been into Diet Cokes
and these Zeus too they all drink soda
but he loves black soda and we just make
sure there's plenty of caffeine-free
Diet Coke I feel like this is the clip
that's going to go viral on Twitter
my 2-year-old's drinking D
Coke that one does blow people's minds
it's the thumbnail it's like kid with
big your book is going to be pulled off
the shelves but I would say on a food
basis I think my kids probably eat like
they have unfettered access to ice cream
they don't eat ice cream every day yeah
if they do eat ice cream they don't
gorge on ice cream they eat ice cream
and how much ice cream can you eat at a
time you know you do get sick of it
after a little while yeah a little kid
they'll go days without ice cream a
stack of chocolate bars they haven't
eaten a chocolate bar in a good while
mhm there's a time where they ate them
all the time different kids will be into
you know Oreo cookies and like Oreo
cookies are the thing and all I want to
say is if I come back in another life I
want to be a kid in your household yeah
good maybe until I develop early
diabetes then I may
reconsider so eron let me ask you and
this is open to you as well Nal but I'll
ask Aaron first so I'm very sensitive to
language think language is really
powerful right the labels we use I think
in both ways we're aware of and in many
ways we're perhaps not explicitly aware
of can influence our beliefs and how we
basically shape this reality we
experience right so the coercion versus
non-coercion like is a very strong
delineation in the favor of non-coercion
right just by setting that up as sort of
a mutually exclusive binary
Choice the question is about this
adversary term or adversarial
relationship which if it sounds like if
I framed it in a slightly different way
used a different label if we were to
make it less negative sounding could be
coaching right and so I think about you
know I did a lot of sports I think it
was formative to who I am and my coaches
were certainly directive right and they
would insist on certain things that
allowed me to I think realize I was
capable of more than I thought I was
totally and I view that as a huge and a
positive for me so how do you think
about the terminology used in taking
children seriously or The Sovereign
child so you don't fall prey to framing
things so strongly that you're kind of
you have a confirmation bias for what
you want to embrace as a philosophy or
ideology does that make sense as a
question yeah I feel like some of the
words are so strong No One's Gonna say I
want an adversarial relationship with my
kids oh no 100% well I think the
coaching example you were able to opt
out right like any team you're on you
can quit unless your parents are making
you do it y that's a good point yeah
very true and what's crucial in that is
that you saw the value in that sport
right and you saw it from your own
perspective you understood it it was
based on your own interest and your own
passion and then you can be encouraged
to to develop that passion and to pursue
Excellence right and then when as you're
pursuing Excellence you're exposed to
constraints right if you want to play in
the soccer team you got to be able to
run a mile like this you got to be able
to do this you got to be able to do that
you got to do the the drills put in the
time right all that stuff is excellent
and the driver right and this is the
thing the key the key to that is the
interest in that that you found that fun
and as long as that is the the
motivating force everything about that I
think is is absolutely
wonderful and and that's the thing you
want to cultivate in your kids is the
interest and the passion and so one way
of getting away from the coercion is
nal's advice they try not to use the
coercion thing because that gets into
this kind of moralizing view yeah just
think about it like what makes something
interesting humans are unique that they
are interested in stuff and it's
actually a deep philosophical question
of what is an interest how does a person
know that something is interesting and
that is the magic like you know Elon
wants to preserve Consciousness as this
light flickering in the universe I want
to preserve interests like a kid that's
interested in something that is
absolutely precious and I want to
cultivate that I want to pour fuel on
that fire and and anything to preserve
that and so that's where the adversary
comes in call what you want I don't want
to step on that or squash that I want my
kid to see me as a gateway to interests
as someone who just can make things more
interesting anything that I'm interested
they add to it so if I'm interested in
video games great my daughter's
interested in YouTube and now she's you
know filming and trying to make YouTube
videos and then she's got to figure out
how the camera works and then like all
the stuff is there and so I want to get
her like okay let me get you a camera
let me get you something to set it up
which dolls are you using how can I help
I'll hold the camera right let's do a
storyboard you know what a storyboard is
like that's what I mean I think taking
children seriously could be how do you
preserve and augment your kids interest
and how are you always an an enabler and
a supporter and a guide and never
someone who's just pouring cold water
because you know that's not writer yeah
that's the clip that I'll put at the
head of this interview just to keep
people in the game yeah that one was
very affecting it changed me what you
just said because I have always viewed
my own life as a series of obsessions
and usually I'll idle for a little bit
then I'll fall in love with something
else and I'll just get obsessed over it
and it could be election or the politics
or the news one day it could be
photography the next it could be AI it
could be crypto it could be coding right
there was a VR ar time period there was
a gaming time period but there's
Obsession after Obsession after
Obsession and there are also obsessions
around working out around food or around
this particular kind of diet or around
dating or what have you and I think it's
not unique to me I think everyone when I
look at them there's usually one or two
or three things that they're obsessed
about or they're gearing up for the next
one and fostering that without being
dactic about it I think is really
important enabling it or allowing it to
happen even pushing it doesn't work
right you tell your kid to be interested
in something they're not going to be
interested in just like if I came to Tim
and I'm like Tim you gotta you got to
like get obsessed over this thing it's
not going to work you're not going to
get obsessed over something the most you
can do is offer options I might try it
if you started bust my balls about it
then I wouldn't because you respect
Naval naval's a person who has great
ideas who gets interested in interesting
things he like is pro fun and so you're
like oh I'm open to his suggestions I'm
not open to my social studies teachers
suggestions yeah you want to be as a
parent the kind of person that your kid
is saying like oh boy if you're
interested in it it's probably pretty
cool I wonder what's going on how do you
Aaron I mean you have five kids so maybe
there's something in that number that
LEDs itself to what I'm going to ask but
physical education Sports teamwork yeah
right I mean across ages that might be
kind of tough oh yeah there's no right
answer here I have my own orientation
towards this stuff but what are your
thoughts on all that I think sports are
fetishized among kids and I think lots
of kids are stunted by spending lots of
time playing sports according to adult
rules and adult supervision and are not
allowed to the free time to explore
their own interests and they get stuck
in these status games where being
successful in school means you're
captain of the soccer team or something
and then you go to college and you never
play soccer again or play pickup soccer
at most and you spend hours and hours
and hours of your formative time playing
by adult rules in this kind of strange
arbitrary status game I think my kids
are quite physically capable and I worry
like oh God I hope they don't get into
and I was into sports when I was a kid
too I think I mean I love baseball I
cherish it but I want them to play these
things only because they enjoy them and
again you know their own interest and I
don't want them to get caught up in
status games why is Sports automatically
about status games what do you mean by
that it's not automatically but in
school there's a certain idea that you
know it's valuable if you can you know
score a lot of points on the basketball
court and you're getting a lot of adult
approval oh you're getting peer approval
too and selfworth perhaps right it's I
mean it could be a pursuit of Excellence
also absolutely like if you love
basketball for basketball's sake and you
really enjoy it great I'm not saying
there's anything wrong with that again
playing baseball is some of the most fun
I've ever had in my life I don't regret
a moment of it but I do regret other
sports that I've played just because
that's what you do after school and
that's what's going to impress the girls
and that's what's going to impress the
adults and I want to get in the
newspaper and I need these
extracurriculars again to college like
that that is an
extraordinary lost opportunity that boy
I wish YouTube was around back then and
I could have gotten into so many other
obsessions that nval is talking about
these were forestalled by these these
activities that are condoned by adults
because that's what the society does not
to say the activities are bad M but they
are bad if a kid does something that
they're not passionate about is just
eating up their time just a low-grade
commitment to something is just killing
hours of an extraordinarily creative
mind spent you know doing drills on a
soccer team that they're not really too
thrilled with one of the common thing
you find in the biographies of like the
super high-end overachiever types is
that they just had tons of free time
when they were kids
you know like Newton used to famously
sit by the side of the creek and like
Whittle on wood and make little water
wheels right or Osho would just sit by
the river for like nine years his
grandma would just let him wander off by
himself you know yeah and when I think
back to my own childhood like the time
that I got to just spend reading and not
having anyone bothering me and reading
whatever I felt like you know from a
library was incredible and so it's that
huge swats of free time to like pursue
your own curiosity and you know like if
my kids are really into sports go play
sports right but I'm not pressuring them
or pushing them or valuing it we did set
up like them going to a sports field and
having like a soccer coach and being
part of a little soccer group and they
hated it they don't like it but they
love the playground next door they love
going to the playground just playing in
the playground so let them do that so
the question I have for you eron I made
appli to of all two but it strikes me it
could be off here but for me at least to
find something I'm passionate about
which is typically some combination of
intrinsic interest whatever that is
constituted of and some capability right
it's usually some combination of those
things right as a kid I had to try a lot
of stuff my mom was very good at
exposing me to a lot of stuff and
encouraging me to explore things that I
was inclined towards marine biology and
I never ended up becoming a marine
biologist but I don't regret any of that
exploration so I guess what I'm
wondering is like your kids are
self-directed in the sense that they
have a lot of time on YouTube and so on
you don't want to force something on
them how do you think about if you do
exposing them though to a buffet of
options that they have the
opportunity to kind of gravitate towards
something or be repelled by it I mean
yeah that's what's so great about
unschooling is that their their day is
not sucked up listening to somebody
drown on about social studies you know
you have eight hours 7 hours that are
free for exploration right poor social
studies teachers in my audience yeah boy
I mean social studies was boring man
just getting thrown under the bus but
okay it's all right we started ice
skating this week it was finally cold
enough for a long enough stretch of days
and there's a little skating rink and
then I bought some PVC pipe to make the
little things that they could hold
themselves up so they can learn a skate
and then we you know cut them up and
we're using the ruler and you know
they're actually using real math real
numbers for you know the different
lengths and then there's the glue of the
PVC pipe and then you know I was like
wow you know we can actually build
different struct out of this stuff we
can build climbing structures you know
from kids that are as young as mine
exposing them to a lot of things I think
that is an important point that you're
making is that I think as a parent
you're are kind of a curator of cool
stuff and so there's a world in between
forcing them to do things and letting
them do whatever they want there's a
whole range in the middle of saying Star
Wars is cool skiing is cool skating is
cool cooking is cool I don't think it is
you know all the stuff they see and you
know making films making videos I mean
just on and on and on and on the the
life is full of all these interesting
things I'll show you the the music that
I like the movies that I like the shows
that I like the humor that I like and
again if there is not this false Persona
I think kids are more open to you know
what you have to tell them about you
know Dad isn't some sort of like G got
to watch out for this guy it's more an
interest in what he has to talk about
and share I think conventionally we
outsourc this to school and say school's
going to expose them to the interesting
stuff and the disaster there is that
school shuts down your interests School
says NOP your interests are frivolous
you got to learn math you got to learn
social studies then you have to do this
after school activity then you have to
do your homework then you have to go to
sleep early and then wake up and do it
all again and so you're just shutting
down all this opportunity for
spontaneous serendipitous things to come
up let me just take a counter position
there for a second so I was in a really
shitty school on Long Island sorry yeah
to their credit a few teachers are like
you need to get out of here and around
15 I transferred to a very very
difficult very good private school in
Hampshire I up to that point had really
disliked studying languages which meant
Spanish that was the option maybe there
was a little bit of French but I did
Spanish couldn't speak it at all when I
got to St Paul's I had to take a
language yeah but they had a very wide
menu to select from I ended up choosing
Japanese and that ended up completely
changing the trajectory of my life so
that compulsion yeah to choose from a
menu actually helped me and I could give
you more examples of that so I just want
to be careful not to paint all schooling
as this prison-like land of Conformity
that forces people to do entirely things
that are suffocating no schools are well
intentioned and they will get some
things right in fact many things right
but the question is at what cost and
what else could you be doing with that
time yeah and I found that with my kids
I can teach them more math you know
getting one to two years Beyond where
they would be in school with like a
minimal amount of homeschooling and
hanging out like minimal absolutely
minimal and you know I can move the kids
at their own speed I really care about
if they're understanding the issue or
not I can do it with Legos with one kid
I can do with pen and paper with another
and just do it a very natural way that
suits each of them and I learn in the
process too so obviously it requires a
luxury of some amount of time but I
would say when school gets things right
you're taking a one-size fits-all model
and you're just hoping that it kind of
landed in the right way my languag is
story is the exact opposite I was forced
to learn Spanish I was forced to learn
French I hated both I forgot both
instantly and to the extent that I
learned anything there I forgot English
I got worse at English so it wasn't
worth it and you know I'm pretty good at
English right that's sort of my
crafting words and now I actually do
want to learn Japanese but I think we're
entering the AI age where translation is
going to get so good so fast that it's
almost going to be obsoleted and so I
could have you know 20% Japanese
speaking in two years or my little AI
lapel pin that somebody's going to ship
at some point and is going to nail it
within the next year or two anyway so
our kids are not going to have to learn
handwriting our kids don't have to learn
how to drive they probably don't need to
learn how to translate languages unless
they get a kick out of the culture or
they want to read room or has in the
original they have a lot of those tasks
are taken away from them and it takes
schools 20 years to catch up school is
teaching something that's much older and
in certain domains not to beat on the
social science of humanities but they're
teaching a very narrow slice of what's
out there it's a very opinionated slice
and the kids are going to figure it out
themselves to me what matters is that
they have the support the curation as
Aaron talked about I still push them
with the basics numer literacy computer
literacy but it might backfire my kids
don't love math so that's a problem
right I'm obviously doing something
wrong so I have to figure something out
then again I didn't love math either
right so I haven't actually heard this
from you noal before so how did you end
up liking math what changed I
don't okay I'm not naturally
mathematical well okay well hold on if
you didn't and you don't how did you end
up studying math were you forced to yes
but the parts that's stuck and the parts
that are valuable just basic math you
know what is I like being good at games
I like being good at strategy games I
used to be a hardcore War gamer yeah and
then I like making money and both of
those required good understanding of
basic math so because I was always
turning over gaming or money problems in
my head I became good at basic math and
the rest of it I still have to look up
or I have to figure it out on the fly as
I need it and my advanced mathematics is
very poor which is part of the reason
why I'm not a physicist or I'm not that
good at physics but I just never got
obsessed with math it was too AB ract
for me and so it was a necessary evil
and I I was forced to learn it as a kid
and that's the one place where I'm
actually grateful I actually have a very
distinct memory of being forced to
memorize my times table when I was
really young and being really unhappy
about it and being really miserable but
then when I look at how much it served
me in life especially you know just
being able to do basic math very very
fast I'm grateful for it you know the
end of the day I don't think I'm making
a big leap like Aaron is I'm not raising
my kids based on some philosophy I'm
just raising them based on like how I
would have wanted to be treated looking
back and I would have wanted freedom in
almost everything MH yeah except math
there's lots of stories of people that
are in in jail in prison for a long
period of time and they become really
good writers right if the costs of
exploring other things weren't raised so
high they wouldn't have spent so much
time on writing yeah are they really
glad that they were imprisoned and
forced to become exceptionally good at
writing right that story that example
doesn't include all the millions of
people that have been imprisoned that
didn't spend that time learning anything
useful and just came out impoverished
people stunted people so you take a few
people who excel at something because
they were forced to and they are
grateful for in the past having been
forced to learn something to excel at it
but you are neglecting all of the other
Branch points and other passions and
excellences that they could have
discovered or they could have become
excellent at what they're good at
without this coercive means yeah let me
just say I don't know if the jail
metaphor is going to help you here just
because not to point out the obvious but
like you guys are outliers in the sense
that you have kids who don't go to
school you're you have the time and the
education to provide all this I think
one could make a very compelling
argument if you were just to remove all
schooling and let all kids in the
country as of you know next week next
month next
quarter unschool themselves that it
would be an unmitigated [&nbsp;__&nbsp;] disaster
maybe formal public education was forced
Upon Us mandator public education was
forced Upon Us during the French and
Russian Empires because they're Empires
so they conquer people and they have to
assimilate them and they forced
assimilate them by putting them in the
schools and The Peasants who were
conquered would hide a kid in the
basement raise a kid entirely in the
basement turn over the rest of the kids
because they couldn't hide them all and
the troops would show up every every
morning and take the kids to school so
that's how it started okay and in the
original medieval universities the
towers used to close it sundown and the
guards used to face inwards because the
whole point was to keep the kids from
going outside and causing trouble this
idea of mandatory schooling has gotten
out of control homeschooling is illegal
in many countries in many states really
absolutely most of Europe homeschooling
is illegal and even in the United States
there's a movement like the Harvard's
publishing papers about how
homeschooling is terrible because
there's a view a pervasive view maybe
even dominant view globally that you
raise the children for society not for
the parents so it's fundamentally a
freedom pro-american thing to raise the
kids for themselves is the next step MH
so enlightened society would go from
We're raising the kids for the state to
we're raising the kids for the parents
to finally we're raising the kids for
themselves or we're just not even
raising the kids we're there to help
them raise themselves none of this is
all or nothing it doesn't all have to be
done at once and yes we're outliers and
Aaron's an extreme outlier but the real
is anyone who's watching this is an
outlier also they're exceptional
individuals they're trying to be
exceptional no one's watching the Tim
Ferris show you know to get what they
can get out of the New York Times or out
of their public education they not
normal these are all reality hackers
these are all people who are trying to
hack reality to be exceptional in some
way so this is a toolkit if you're the
kind of person that you know believes in
freedom of speech and the right to bear
arms and figuring things off of yourself
and that you can learn anything you can
do anything you can win at any game that
you choose to play you can live off the
grid you can go hiking you can forge
your unique relationships and your
unique lifestyle why not think about
raising your kids in the way that you
want and what this does is this breaks
the mold this says there isn't just one
way to raise children it's not just
autopilot you put them in track by the
way the people who don't
homeschool just very selfishly their
lives suck okay because they have to
wake up at 6 in the morning they got to
pack the lunch they got to drag the kids
out of bed screaming they got to put
them in the shower they got to bundle
them onto a bus they got to send them
off kid comes home then they got to like
force them to do their homework put him
to bed kid squealing the whole time they
they argue about what they eat they
can't travel they can't vacation you
know someone's sick they can't get the
time off their lives are run around the
school it's like oh I got to run home
this 1 p.m. I got to put the kid down I
got to wake the kid up I got to feed the
kid at this time you know and then they
don't get along with their kids their
kids are fighting and for what for what
are you doing all of this our kids are
no less well socialized they're no less
well educated they're no less happy if
anything they're higher in all those
metrics so why are you putting yourself
through all of this misery it doesn't
work question this is a compelling
argument and I have a followup question
which is for you Erin first where do you
and your spouse have disagreements or
maybe that's too strong a word
discussions
around any aspect of taking children
seriously or the Sovereign child we have
tons of discussions on how we're going
to solve this problem maybe discussions
isn't strong enough work disagreements
like disagreements friction growth
opportunities I mean there's things that
we used to have that we don't anymore
what are those well just like this needs
to be a rule like we have to have a rule
about this there's a middle ground it's
not like it's all or nothing right
there's a huge Middle Ground to relaxing
rules and one one easy thing people can
do right now is just say that instead of
enforcing a rule we think about it for
60 seconds like just spend 60 seconds
and think is there some solution to this
that gets around this problem like
there's no drawing on the walls right
like can we just think for 60 seconds
right before you tell the kid no drawing
on the walls 60 seconds is long enough
to solve so many problems it's
unbelievable like you know you start
thinking like oh maybe we could just put
paper all over the walls let's do that
yeah we'll put paper on the walls and
there then I draw on the paper on the
wall right so that was one big thing
that my wife and I made progress with
was realizing that we just just pause
when the Mind goes to enforce a rule
just pause and think is there's some way
around this it's gotten to the point now
where we don't even we don't even go
toward the rule just the reflexes like
oh damn it kid wants to do this and
that's going to really cause a mess can
we do it like this can we do it like
that I guess that's one answer to your
question are there things where you want
to take the hands off the wheel and your
wife is like I would prefer some
variation that is not exactly hands off
the wheel yeah I'm more prone to saying
hands off the wheel she's a little bit
more conservative than me but the other
thing is that she and I are also problem
solving mhm our daughter got a
hoverboard and it's making marks on the
floor so the Temptation is no hoverboard
in the house and it's like well why
don't you want the hoverboard in the
house you're kind of afraid they're
going to fall and hurt themselves
they're going to smash into the
furniture they're going to make marks on
the floor right you start going through
this and it's like okay well what if we
move the furniture out of the dining
room and I'll clean up the floor right
or we'll show our daughter how to clean
up the floor MH instead of it being like
no hoverboard in the house let's just
try to understand what we don't like
about this and you know my wife and I
use this you know apart from the kids
right like I want to play music she
doesn't like radio head I really like
listening to radio head you guys like no
radio head in the house it's how can I
listen to the music I want you listen to
the music you want have quiet when we
want quiet it's just not about enforcing
rules it's about how do we all make our
lives better like I'm my wife's partner
in making her life better she's a
partner making my life better we partner
with our kids to make their lives better
like you know everybody trying to find
out from their perspective what's not
working and how to make it better so
what happened with a radio head is
everybody walking out with headsets
that's a problem actually I haven't
really solv that one it's it's nice to
have it on the speakers and that one's a
sticking point yeah got it got it and I
do think one of my rules will be no
hoverboards in the
house all right nval what about you just
in terms of parenting style we have a no
control philosophy in the house with
each other my wife and I we've had that
for a long time she can't even schedule
me I can't schedule her we don't commit
each other we don't you know have big
expectations she can't make me go to
like her parents birthday I can't like
make her go to a business
dinner we're really non-controlling
people to begin with of each other so
it's pretty easy to align on not
controlling the kids but that also means
that if she wants to control the kids
she can and if I want to control the
kids I can I don't tell her don't
control the kids right so we actually
have very different styles and it does
cause a problem when like kid wants
screen time you know they'll go and
negotiate with each party and whoever's
more lenient will give them the screen
time or the ice cream so basically I get
to be the good
cop but we are talking it through I
think especially the book you know
Erin's book she has a copy I have a copy
I've read it she's reading it both of us
find ourselves nodding more than saying
no and I think we're going to be
relaxing more rules and see how it goes
there is a hump there's going to be that
hump of like the one week of just eating
chocolate and playing video games so
maybe we go through them one at a time
and see how much maybe you'll just end
up getting diabetes before your kids do
yes but there's a couple of trend lines
as a parent one of the things you
realize is your ability to even if you
are fully into the rulle system your
ability to enforce rules breaks down
over time it's just normal the kids find
gaps they exploit the gaps they get
older and you know our oldest is already
hitting the age where I couldn't stop
him if I wanted to I hope he doesn't see
this episode by the way cuz that's like
instant jailbreak right it's two hours
in I think he won't make it this far
that's my guess yeah he's gone through a
growth spurt he's quite large now he
could probably overpower me shortly so
you know we're already getting at the
point where like what rules am I exactly
going to enforce and how on Earth am I
going to enforce these rules that you
speak of and then you know the next one
down just wants to copy him and the next
one down wants to copy that one so
there's a jailbreak already happening a
slow motion jailbreak so I'd rather you
know kind of open the door and let them
out and get some credit rather than you
know was a revolt and they escaped and
and now they view me as that forever
there's a feeling that I sometimes get
which I don't know if the rest of you
have this but when you're around family
sometimes you feel a certain weight like
you can't be yourself right so there are
times when like there's family around
you don't want them around because you
feel a certain pressure and it's just
like if your friend was sitting there
and doing the exact same thing it
wouldn't bother you but because as a
family member sitting there and doing
that thing it bothers you and it's like
why why is that this person just sitting
there reading the book why does it
bother me that this person is sitting
there reading the book and it's because
going back to the animal conditioning
part the one thing I did get conditioned
on was over 10 15 20 years having this
person always telling me what to do
right saying don't do this do that and
it was always well-meaning and it was
always with love but they were always
watching me I see so for clarity when
you say family you mean like your
parents not your kids yeah like my mom
or even my brother you know who I love
to or my aunt you know if they're
sitting there I'm just used to having
gone through a combination of conflict
and control and negotiation with them
constantly that I just feel like I'm
being watched and I think other people
have this feeling too and I don't want
my kids to have that feeling when I'm in
the room with them I don't want them to
have the feeling that oh I might do
something that he's not going to approve
of and so therefore he will either say
something or even just feel something
disapproving and therefore I feel
self-conscious right so I want to have
as little of that feeling as possible in
my life in my kids' lives exactly which
is why I don't want to bust them I don't
want to be giving them rules I don't
want to be their enforcer I don't want
to be their Warden being their enforcer
and Warden makes me worse off makes them
worse off and it completely destroys a
relationship so I have to figure out how
to unwind that same time I do have to be
a parent they can't run in the street
they got to do their math sorry
Aon you know maybe we'll get through
that but you know I do have to arm them
for what what's going to happen in life
Judith Harris was this woman she did
like this famous meta study maybe wrote
a book on child raising and what she
basically concluded was it's mostly
genetics it's mostly nature sorry and
then the remaining part that's nurture
is from their peers they're raised by
their peers and it's not really raised
by their parents because they're trying
to adapt to the world they're going to
live in not the world that you lived in
and so my conclusion from that was
instead of trying to control your
children you can be one step removed mov
and control their environment and the
way you do that is the most important
decision parents make for their kids is
where they live what neighborhood are we
living in you know what friends are they
around what school are they going to
that's why parents are so obsessive
about choosing the school because you're
Outsourcing your child raising for half
the time this kid is going to be raised
in the school by a collection of peers
and possibly teachers out of your
control so you put a lot of effort into
the school so the same way you know you
curate their environment like is the
house look more like a library or does
it more look like more like a sports
Stadium you know is it messy is it clean
so you curate the environment you curate
the expectations you curate the
opportunities you curate the peer set
you curate the
location and the nicer way to look at
that is not curate by excluding but
opportunistic by including you give them
opportunities and new things to hook on
to and obsessions so that's the way I
prefer to do it and then of course
always lead by example right if they see
how I'm treating my mother hopefully
they'll treat me that way when they're
old older when they see like how I treat
you know the waiter at the restaurant
hopefully they'll key off of that that's
normal behavior if they see if I'm
littering or jaywalking or not littering
or not jaywalking they're going to queue
off of that kids are very smart they
know everything you're doing kids are
really good at noticing hypocrisy in
parents so I'll be saying no screen time
while I'm going through my phone right
what is that I thought about this one I
was like maybe we limit screen time for
everybody like we literally just say
like unless you're learning or studying
or whatever like nobody gets screen time
until a certain amount of time but if I
impose my own rules on myself no screen
time till math and reading's done and no
screen time till 6 p.m. that's miserable
why am I doing it to them this is a very
hard problem not saying I have a
solution a lot of hypocrisy what Core
Concepts have we not covered whether
it's taking children seriously The
Sovereign child or just generally a
non-or of Freedom maximizing parenting
approach that we have not covered common
objections that you'd like to address
concerns anything come to mind I mean
we've covered a lot of ground but I
don't know the terrain well enough to
know what we've missed I would say
there's four categories of harm that
come from
rules that I think are helpful to make
them explicit and we've talked about a
bunch of them but one is the parent
child adversarial gatekeeping
relationship that's you know every time
rules are enforced that gets brought in
the other one we mentioned is the
child's damage to their relationship
with themselves their self- policing
self-awareness and lack of
self-confidence because their desires
are getting them in trouble and need to
be minded and policed the third one is
confusion about the issue at hand right
rules are not the reason right the
reason why we're polite is because of
the Norms of politeness and courtesy or
the reasons why you know you wear
mittens outside or because your hands
are cold not because get in trouble so
when you're introducing rules you're
introducing a confusion about the issue
at hand right the reason why you brush
your teeth is cavities and and how your
breath smells not whatever consequences
your parents those would be confusions
and then the fourth category is a
confusion in general about how to
explore the world that with rules it
means that you know whenever a question
comes up in the future the answer is to
find the relevant Authority and do what
they say not that you yourself are an
empowered person who can figure it out
yourself and understand things instead
you you defer that you kind of sit back
and do what you're told and it leads to
I think a a more conformist life in kind
of a narrower life so I think those four
harms it's not that they can happen it's
that they happen every single time like
when nval is saying you know if we make
a rule that you know none of us are on
our devices right well then nval has to
be the enforcer of that Naval has to be
the surveiller he has to be constantly
surveilling he has to be judging right
and even when everyone's in compliance
and everybody's happy when nval walks
into the room people's minds think oh
well Dad's here and now I have to be
careful about whether I'm using an iPad
or not right just naval's mere presence
causes those four harms when he is or me
or anybody right when anybody is
enforcing rules you're perpetuating
those harms and those harms are not
unavoidable they're not necessary evils
they are in every
circumstance avoidable and I think that
is it's not easy to do it's always a
kind of
specific situation dependent context
dependent thing it's a certain problem
that's going on but there are always
solutions that avoid those four harms
and when you avoid those four harms it's
a relationship building it's trust
building it's knowledge growing it's
more fun it's confidence growing and all
those things so I I feel like there's
bifurcation and it's possible to let go
of the arms of rule enforcement that's
one thing and the other thing is your
your point on constraints unless you
want to say something no go for it your
point on constraints is that constraints
are great when you can opt out of them
right and it's the fact that I don't
know I like board games and settlers of
Katan I love that game and what happened
was the creator of that game some German
guy clous toyba you got it so he play
with a family family and they would get
bored and and leave and so then he was
like all right I got to modify it right
and he kept on coming back if his family
was not allowed to leave and they had to
sit there and play he would never learn
how to design that game to make it so
goddamn fun right it was the fact that
the family could opt out he was creating
a set of constraints and those
constraints got very very good because
the participants could opt out those are
the constraints that you want those that
you can opt out of so when you're
talking about creativity right artists
will do things like constrain the canvas
in some certain way or say I can only
use this one color or I'm only going to
use one type of brush right that is
great because the artist isn't stuck
with that for the rest of their life if
that was a constraint that they couldn't
opt out of that would be limiting but to
try out different constraints and be
free to opt out of them at all times
enables people to gravitate toward
better and better constraints enables
people to modify constraints and on a
very deep level that is what knowledge
is knowledge growth is finding better
and better constraints the more you
understand the limitations of the world
the better you're able to operate within
it for example you know Amazon is
delivering you know some drone service
right they need
to understand all the traffic or the
self-driving cars right to make full
self-driving you have to understand all
of the limitations extraordinarily well
all the traffic lights all the road
roads all the closures all the different
cars how cars work pedestrians and once
you're able to understand those
constraints fully then you can build a
self-driving car system and now your
freedom explodes so the better you can
understand the constraints the more
power you have once the R Brothers
learned the constraints of the laws of
aerodynamics then they can build an
airplane and now you have the freedom to
fly in addition to drive and walk right
so once you learn the germ theory of
disease now you can develop antibiotics
and now you can develop you know
sterilization techniques and so
constraints are things that you want to
know about and in the world of human
Affairs you want to be able to opt out
of them to be able to make them better
nval you mentioned that you found
yourself nodding your head more than
shaking your head what do you most shake
your head about what do you most
disagree with Aaron to me it's just the
math and reading thing and even there
I'm questioning myself to be
honest we just talked about how much
math I actually know and how I learned
it and I have two close friends one of
them didn't speak English until he was
much older and never got into reading
books and the other one who just never
was into books until he was older and
both of them seem to have gotten
obsessed cracked open the 20 30 books
that really matter and ignored all the
thousands I read that didn't and they
seem just as smart and just as
knowledgeable they've caught up really
fast so I'm sort of questioning how much
those things really matter you know one
other point I would sort of make is that
I think think a lot of the arguments
around why kids shouldn't have
unfettered screen time or should be
socializing are based around them living
in a kid world and the reality is you
can think of either kids as animals that
have to be domesticated so they can
learn how to operate in the society that
we grew up in or you can think about
them as little creative Learners who are
trying to learn how to operate in the
world that's going to exist and the
world that's going to exist is going to
be full of screens so I gave up like you
got to use screens there going to be
screen everywhere it's like the kids in
school right now who are being told you
cannot use AI for your essays you can't
use AI in school well it's a most
powerful tool ever made by Humanity
probably you know it's like the top of
that Apex right now so of course you
want to be able to use it everyone's
going to be using it I was allowed to
use calculators didn't make me worse at
math it just let me focus on aspects of
math other than figuring out how to
multiply and divide extremely large
numbers so I fool around with my son on
prime numbers and we were like real
realizing together some fundamental
things about prime numbers that luckily
I wasn't wasting time making him
memorize you know all the state capitals
you sort of have to let kids explore the
world as it exists today not live in a
fake world not the fake rules of high
school and high school sports not the
fake world of like fourth graders only
intermingle with fourth graders not the
fake world of some external Authority
telling you what to eat and when to go
to the bathroom and when to sit down and
when to wake up and when to go to sleep
so they're trying to learn learn how to
navigate the real world and so I'm
getting more to the point of view that I
just have to help them do that I'm going
to put in one Public Service
Announcement so on the screen side of
things putting aside sociobehavioral
questions and so on I would encourage
people to check out there's a TED Radio
Hour miniseries it's podcast uh one of
which in a series called The Body
Electric focuses on sort of
maladaptive changes in
the optic system from kids being exposed
to extended hours at least that's that's
what they identify as the causal Factor
screen time so they showcase a school I
want to say it's in copertino or
Sunnyvale in Northern California
specifically aimed at sort of reversing
or addressing some of these changes in
young kids and they've sort of tracked
these changes with a bunch of
epidemiological data and so on so anyway
just to to put it out there like there
may be some very obvious sort of visual
changes that can be attributed to like
structural adaptations or mal
adaptations with a lot of screen time so
people can check out that episode if
they want but that's putting aside all
the other stuff hi guys Tim here just a
quick reminder very important stick
around after the end of our three-person
conversation to listen to an exclusive
bonus segment close to an hour that nval
and Aaron recorded with extra practical
tips as well as incremental day-to-day
experiments that you can test and apply
it's super super tactical so you won't
want to miss it enjoy what else should
we cover guys anything else that uh we
should get into Aaron I remember you had
a thread on air chat what was it it was
like things to do when you get to the ER
things you got to know about the ER what
was the thread do you remember yeah I
work in a hospital and a lot of what I
do is I meet patients in the emergency
room who are too sick to go home and
there's a big transition that happens in
the emergency room to having to stay
overnight in the hospital perhaps for
you know a couple nights and there's
just a lot of things that go on and I
find myself you know even in residency I
was like boy it'd be nice to have like a
public service announcement for some
basic things about you know what happens
when you come to the hospital or the
emergency room that people just
generally tend not to know and so that
was yeah that's what I talked about some
kind of basic how to survive the
emergency room and the hospital tips so
let's talk about that you've worked as a
hospitalist trans transitioning people
from the emergency room into a longer
stay in the hospital what are tips to
survive that transition if you get to
the hospital what do you need to know I
mean obviously it's a morbid topic we
don't all talk about it but you want to
be ready if you or someone you know goes
to the ER what should you do the first
thing is before going to the emergency
room bringing an accurate medication
list that's probably the most common
thing especially older people and a lot
of people listening to this podcast will
be kind of shepherding their older
parents in this kind of environment and
it's often assumed that the hospital has
you know the accurate medication list in
the computer system but almost always
the list that they have doesn't match
the actual meds that the person is
swallowing on a daily basis and so it's
probably the most relevant most
important piece of information that the
patient or the patient's family knows
better than anybody else and so to make
sure that list accompanies the patient
to the emergency room you just can't
emphasize enough how important that is
and you want more than one copy because
what what happens is the family if they
have the list they'll dutifully give it
to the nurse or the doctor or whomever
and the emergency room doctor looks at
it and they make their kind of
assessment and then that gets lost and
then if the person is staying in the
hospital for a couple
nights the hospital doctor doesn't have
access to that list and they're and
they're kind of guessing so that would
be the one thing I would say the
simplest thing is to have more than one
copy of a medication list and make sure
that goes with the patient to the
emergency room the other easy one is
that a lot of times patients will just
go to different hospitals what you want
to do is have a relationship with one
hospital because they have all your
information and so all else being equal
unless something Terrible's happening
and there's an emergency and you just
don't have time to get to your hospital
of choice really go to the hospital that
knows you that's I was just say
enormously
helpful because there's a a thought out
there understandable that all the you
know information systems can communicate
but they really can't no it's very
common yeah no they
don't yeah sometimes patients and
families are caught off guard by that I
say those are the two easy ones yeah and
then if you find yourself in the
emergency room you know hopefully
whatever problem you're there can be
fixed and you can go home but if you're
not fortunate enough to go home this
transition happens that people are not
aware of again understandably is that
you know there's there's doctors that
only work in the emergency room and then
there's doctors that only work in the
hospital and so if the patients's too
sick to go home they have to stay then
the hospitalist which is me comes down
to the emergency room and starts the
whole process over of meeting the
patient asking them why they're there
how they've been doing Etc and this kind
of second history and interview is often
made without the supporting family
available in other words you know a
listener to the podcast brings their
elderly parent to the emergency room the
decision is made to keep them in the
hospital and then the child goes home
the son or daughter goes home and then
the hospital is comes down and now the
hospitalist is having a conversation
with the patient and they've already
told their story several times and
there's this fatigue that sets in and so
that hospitalist often doesn't get the
full story in the same way that the
emergency room doctor gets it the
emergency room doctor gets the worried
son the worried daughter the patient
gets all the
information and then when the hospitals
comes through the second time through
it's much less information available so
I would say if your loved one is staying
in the hospital you want to be present
for that second interview with the
hospital IST you don't have to
necessarily even be in the in the
emergency room but like have your phone
ready keep it on keep it charged and you
know be a ailable to answer that round
of questions a second time yeah I think
anyone who's had to take someone into
the hospital realizes just
how frantic the whole thing is and how
much communication gets lost and how
often you have to repeat yourself and
then even like my brother who has some
experience in the medical field also he
would always point out to me like you
know they come in and like the person
who's giving you the medicines also has
maybe a disconnect from the doctor or
the hospitalist or the ER what was
already given and what the person's
to and you know what the dosage is and
all of that so you can really help them
with the information flow is what it
boils down to right you have to like
write everything down keep lists and
keep presenting it to them and matching
it up against what they know because the
whole thing is chaos it's controll chaos
kind of a miracle that even works yeah
Controlled Chaos is exactly it and
there's so much information it's hard to
say like oh do this and don't do that so
the thing that matters I would say the
the simple message that really stands
out is this medication
list okay that is like 50% of it I'm
going to go assemble one after this yeah
I took a note for my parents just to
have that especially if they're fraying
at the edges or just getting older in
years and Aaron you had a very good
Twitter thread or maybe it was just a
long initial tweet on dementia that I
thought was very compelling that we'll
link to in the show notes as well all
right guys well we've covered a lot of
any closing comments questions
complaints otherwise that you guys would
like to mention before we wind to close
there's a hierarchy of knowledge here so
we got to acknowledge our forebears all
of this comes down from Deutsch's
philosophy so beginning of infinity
fabric of reality great books although
they don't explicitly talk about
children then there's taking children
seriously which I think has a website
FAQ there's a rich history there and
then has a book The Sovereign child that
he wrote that is like you know I'm not
going to plug it but I think there's a
free copy coming out like maybe next
week or something it's even going to be
free available online so it's not like a
big money-making Endeavor you can just
download the PDF and read it or it's
like a buck on Kindle or something this
is not a money grab you can just go get
the book and figure it out for yourself
the book is very detailed I would say
there's a lot more that's out there
including very specific cases of what do
I do when this happen happens how do you
solve that problem what's your counter
to this objection so it's kind of all
there I wish the kids could listen to
this right because I think they might
resonate a little bit better because
parents come from a different angle
Educators come from their own angle I
wish the wives would be on here at some
point maybe we do a a women's episode if
there's interest but it's worth trying
it's worth trying these relaxation of
rules one by one it's not relaxation
it's moving from rules to discussions
and problem solving it's moving from
Rules tools to Discovery learning and
problem solving and trying to solve
problems up front in such a way that
then it can sustain itself I'm
definitely going to be making changes
based not just on the book but also on
this conversation anything from this
conversation that stuck out for you
nille yeah I mean I just need to let go
a little bit more basically I need to go
turn off the screen time controls on my
younger son's iPad I need to
probably start relaxing some of the food
rules and some of the screen time rules
the math one's going be
tough I'll have to introspect on that
Erin so the book is The Sovereign child
subtitle how a forgotten philosophy can
liberate kids and their parents where
can people find you online if they want
to learn more or just keep up to date on
your your various pronouncements
discussions ruminations yeah I'm on X a
stle on X and really enjoy that and plan
on doing some spaces and amas that's
really my main location the book has a
has a website and as Nal is saying
there's going to be rolling out some
various alternative ways to read it and
like a a web reader and different ways
to organize the content
and yeah that's the main sources great
yeah as a disclaimer I push Aaron to
write the book and I'm a donor to the
organization that funded the final copy
but I don't make any money off of it
it's not a not a money-making exercise
books don't make money as we all know
right all right guys well thank you for
the time and to everybody listening
we'll link to everything in the show
notes as per usual t. Blog podcast I'm
sure if you search stle there will be
the one and only so that'll pull up this
episode and you'll be able to find
everything and more I'm sure will add to
the show notes as things go along and uh
thanks to both of you guys Aaron and Nal
for the time and suppose until next time
folks who are tuning in be a little bit
Kinder than is necessary to others and
to yourself try relaxing some rules
maybe it's with your kids maybe it's
with yourself nval go eat some hoos we
should have a tequila party and Tequila
party with no math
requirement and until next time
everybody thanks for tuning
in and now the bonus segment from Aaron
and nval with extra tactical practical
day-by-day experiments that you can
apply please
enjoy thank you for joining again Aaron
so let's talk a little bit more
practically and down to earth about the
taking children seriously philosophy and
The Sovereign child philosophy so let's
get Tactical for a moment let's say
we're taking children
semi-seriously and we're starting out oh
yeah let's go through what I would
consider my big four which are eating
sleeping screen time and learning
actually this probably a fifth which is
sibling conflict so maybe you can remind
me we can go through all five of those
but what is a simple tactical easy thing
you could start with on each of these so
let's start with uh sibling conflict
what is an easy simple tactical change
that you could try to make that takes
children more seriously on sibling
conflict and would be a good first step
to just see is this working or not I
think an easy thing would be to create
an easy way for kids to opt out often
when kids are having conflict one of
them wants to leave the situation and a
lot of times parents require kids to
kind of reconcile and have this forced
you know apology and be there for the
whole thing whereas instead you would
allow the kid to go to their room I know
some parents who don't have a separate
room for their kids or don't have a
separate space so create a separate
space for a cooling off where they can
exit any conflict if they want to you
also had another strategy in your book
which I liked which was just clear
ownership even if you can't afford to
duplicate or triplicate or in your case
quintili everything you can still make
it clear that this belongs to that child
and that belongs to the other child and
this idea of sharing or required sharing
isn't necessarily there because we don't
require adults to share with each other
they do it voluntarily or they negotiate
it and you could possibly introduce the
same thing with kids so that's a simple
one so yeah another simple one for
sibling conflict would be not to
the aggressor in the moment just to wait
until things cool down and just kind of
make it a policy that in the moment
we're going to let tempers simmer down
and then talk about things when a kid is
more able to be thoughtful about it yeah
and this would be true with spousal
relationships as well you get no fight
with your spouse you don't immediately
start accusing and reprimanding them you
sort of just try to cool the tension
down first and then 24 hours later you
can have a real conversation right alth
the kid Case by then the emotions pass
and they don't really care as much
anymore right okay so that's great a set
of good simple tactics on sibling
conflict and not saying to introduce all
of these at once but you can start with
one and see how it goes let's take
another one how do you think about
learning the child doesn't want to learn
and that could take different forms one
it could be they don't want to go to
school they don't want to do their
homework they don't want to study their
math is there a simple tactic we would
try to get through this challenge I
think one thing is to just think about
about the time involved and this really
goes for everything I think one simple
to gradually shift away from Rules is
just to build in a little bit of time
between when a problem is noticed and
when you start enforcing some sort of
change and so with learning right like
when does a kid need to learn to read
let's say reading is you know absolutely
essential can't let a kid not learn to
read can't let a kid not learn math but
when do they need to learn math when do
they need to learn to read I think you
realize right there there is an enormous
amount of time and so once you just have
some time to think about it it takes the
pressure off and that time also enables
fun things to arise that also bring
about reading and writing for example my
daughter is having a birthday and one
thing we decided was we decided she you
know we presented this idea to her she
loved it that she's in charge of her
birthday and being in charge of her
birthday is doing the invitations and
doing the invitations requires writing
so she made all the invitations and it
was really quite fantastic right because
there's a lot more to it than just even
writing there's dates the calendars
writing the address on the envelope
suddenly streets zip codes States towns
like all of that you know a lot of
civics a lot of writing a lot of reading
all is happening in a very authentic
genuine way
way built on or structured around her
interests she recognizes the need to be
able to read and write in this context
another thing is video games a lot of
these video games the character is
talking with the other character and the
words are appearing in little thought
Bubbles and you really can't navigate
the video games some of these video
games without reading and I think you
have that just over and over and over
things that are absolutely essential for
kids to learn are very useful and very
prevalent and you really can't do much
in the world without bumping into these
things it's a good point because a lot
of times you'll help your kids with
these things they're struggling with
their computer or their iPad and you'll
fast forward the whole problem for them
but then you force them to sit down and
slowly methodically try to learn almost
the same skill set but in a very
regimented artificial way and so it's
always better done in context which of
course requires a lot of Parental
involvement a lot of Parental time so
what do you think about that I mean does
TCS take a lot of Parental time which a
lot of parents just don't
have yes and no the simple answer there
is that enforcing rules takes a ton of
time and not just time but anxiety and
stress you know managing somebody else
stressful time yeah the iPad is the best
babysitter ever designed if you're not
too concerned about the second order
effects or if you don't necess view them
as negative if you just view them as
they are what they are then it is the
best babysitter ever designed it's the
best adult sitter ever designed we're
always on our phones scrolling and we're
constantly criticizing the Doom
scrolling on the phone but then we
continue doing it ourselves so our words
don't actually match our
actions yeah I could talk about that one
I think the unique thing about the iPad
is that it is the most customized device
right like if you go back in time right
if you buy a car you're going to get the
same sonda Civic that everybody else
gets if you buy a Walkman even right you
get the same Sony Walkman that everybody
else gets maybe a few different
modifications but with an iPad you can
modify this thing endlessly for a very
wide variety of activities and it's so
easy to reduce the iPad down to piece of
glass with light behind it right it's a
portal into the Internet it's a portal
into all the media that exists and it's
a springboard to interests right it is a
platform for discovering and creating
and kindling interests and from those
you can attach Reading Writing math
there's cooking shows like kids cooking
shows my um my youngest daughter is
really into cooking yeah this is not
part of TCS philosophy but or this is
not the full TCS philosophy but I think
as a parent you could do partial things
you could say here's an iPad it's
curated I picked what's on there oh yeah
but within that set you can just you
know use it or you can use it within
these hours right but within those hours
it's relatively unstructured
absolutely and not browbeat kids over
playing chess versus playing video games
I actually grew up really disliking
chess and back gam and and go and all of
the standard smart kid games and I just
loved brainless video games and lots and
lots of them but over time my taste got
more and more sophisticated and so if
someone had forced me to play chess I
think that would have been a pretty
childhood that's another just big
General point that I think is lost the
there's a difference between describing
the kind of Ideal end state right kind
of the goal of this like Freedom
maximization State and that's a
different question from how do I get
from the state we're in now to that goal
ideal State and a sudden change is a bad
idea and so I'm not advocating suddenly
just ripping off all the rules and you
know shifting to a free-for-all instead
the recommendation and the thought is
that you want incremental changes how
can you make small modifications small
reversible modifications that lead in a
direction to a state of more freedom and
lead in a direction to less rules that
is the goal of parenting right like
eventually a kid goes off to college and
is in a state of very few rules do you
want that to be a sudden shift do you
want rules to suddenly be withdrawn
isn't it ideal to withdraw those rules
to wean off those rules earlier and
earlier in life gradually well actually
one one of the things we're already
seeing in response to your book people
talking about it on Twitter for example
is they will say well my kids are
teenagers it's too late and so there's
an abdication there it's like once
they're teenagers there's no rules
anymore they just kind of doing whatever
they want I try to enforce certain rules
just by owning the house that they
happen to live in but even there it's
frustrating so by the time they're 10 11
12 your rules are all gone anyway so or
being ignored for the most part so are
you going to tear that bandid off or let
them tear it off or are you going to
gradually relax the rules in
anticipation of what is to come yeah and
I think it's a safe thing right if we're
worried about this being risky it is a
safe thing to be thinking about how do I
gradually relax my rules so that my kid
can be independent I'll make an analogy
in medicine right A lot of times
somebody's very sick and they're on a
lot of oxygen and or they're in the
Intensive Care Unit and they're on the
breathing machine and what they've
learned is that you have to give
patients the opportunity to breathe on
their own and see if they don't need the
machine and so there are dedicated
trials every morning for everybody who's
on a breathing machine is to try them on
minimal settings and see how they can do
and you're you don't want to have a
person on maximum life support any
longer than they need it and the only
way to tell is to pull it back a little
bit and so I think of of taking children
seriously is you're constantly pulling
back the support just a little bit to
see if they can make it on their own
that's always the goals how do I
gradually safely wean off the support
it's not a recommendation to withdraw
all the support suddenly and see if the
person can sink or swim that's not the
idea I would recommend against that how
would you relax sleeping what is the
first rule you would remove around
sleeping so sleeping how would you do
this gradually right I think one thing
is you kind of recognize that the
bedtimes are arbitrary right there is no
manual that says 6:30 7:30 8:30 it's
usually a 30 right maybe it's 78 right
why isn't it 8:15 why isn't it 7:15
718 right so Sundown to Sunrise Sundown
to Sunrise right you so why not just say
you know what why don't we relax this by
half an hour you know if the kids
bedtime is 7:30 let's try 8:00 and see
what happens you could tell the kid look
we're just going to do 8:00 for week and
see what happens and just honestly just
pay attention and did the sky fall or
was it kind of okay and then if it
wasn't okay the beauty is is that it's
not going to be okay for some people
then that raises the question this is
the epistemology it raises the question
why wasn't okay and now you're
investigating what is wrong when my kid
doesn't get enough sleep and then how do
we fix that I also think a lot of this
ties into adult sleep habits it's
strange that they're being forced to go
to sleep when you're awake for the next
4 hours yeah the reality is in my house
if we turn all the lights down if the
adults go to sleep the kids will Scurry
to sleep they don't want to be awake by
themselves it's scary at their age
they're bored and it's scary oh scary
too yeah yeah exactly and then in the
morning they'll sleep in they're young
they'll sleep longer but as an adult if
you really want them to go to sleep
early just go to sleep early yourself
but that's easier said than done well
it's another thing you could try right
you could try saying you know what I'm
just going to go to to sleep and see
what happens let's turn the lights off
and go to sleep and see what happens so
yeah like basically many experiments
like that and then also on the waking up
side what time do they need to wake up
is there any way I can build in some
extra time in the morning and often
you're stuck because you got to go to
work but there's Breakfast Can breakfast
be made the night before can I figure
out a way to minimize my kids routine so
they can wake up an extra 15 minutes an
extra half hour
and then your kid was probably going to
notice that you are working hard to try
to get them more sleep what an
interesting message that sends like hey
I I really want you to be able to sleep
in in the morning and uh damn you got to
get up for school but it takes a half
hour to get breakfast and to get changed
and everything let's pick out your
clothes tonight what you want to do that
or I can pick them out for you and to be
fair I think every parent views
themselves almost in service to their
child at some point you know and they're
always trying to help the children and
they try these things early on and then
it gets frustrating and life gets busy
and they just eventually start
establishing rules and Society sort of
makes it easy for to establish the rules
they give you a set of rules in books
they tell you like oh yeah my kids are
doing nap time at this time so you kind
of go along with the Joneses and then
School of course and work and schedules
establish rules so a lot of this
actually also means you as an adult
unburdening yourself from rules and this
goes to larger points about try to live
a less scheduled life if you have the
choice and the luxury try to pick jobs
where you can control your time much
better and then that allows you to not
have to control your kids time as much
if you want to maximize your kids
freedom and therefore their ability to
learn and solve problems you have to
maximize your own Freedom as well that's
a journey for everybody let's go to
eating that's a tough one in your book
you sort of embrace this fully you just
like yeah they they have access to
everything and they just eat whatever
they want whenever they want they might
live in a diet of Oreos and chocolate
bars for a little while until they
figure it out I'm not willing to go
there I don't think most people are so
where do we start a great way to start
is always the kids's interest and it'll
be interesting to know what kind of
foods they are interested in what
forbidden foods are they interested in
chocolate and you know you could explore
are there foods with chocolate that
don't make you uncomfortable right
instead of Oreos are there you know I
know yeah know dark chocolate chocolate
chocolate made with honey there is
definitely a high Archy of chocolate and
you know okay yeah so if you think
there's a hierarchy of chocolate you
could explore the hierarchy another
thing is you know exploring yourself
like what are you worried about with
these particular Foods you know a lot of
times with the chocolate and the sweets
It's that the kid will get hyper and
there's a open question about whether
that is true or not and you could just
let the kids eat the sweets and see if
they are in fact more hyper it is
definitely the common belief I
personally have not seen it I haven't
seen a correlation between sugar and
hyperactivity especially past a very
young age maybe early early early on but
I think as soon as they're sort of
choosing their Foods I don't notice the
hyperactivity around food I think it's
more around just calories and nutrients
and less around something magic with
sugar but you know everyone's different
I don't get Runners High either
so it's a variable thing um yeah I mean
I think people already do have loosening
of rules right there's usually like
something like oh okay after you eat
your meal you can have your dessert and
then within dessert it's not like you've
laid out exactly how many ounces and how
many calories and so on but anything
that gives a child more Choice more
freedom maybe choices of desserts maybe
even saying okay you can eat your
dessert now but then you have to eat
your food later and if you don't the
next time you don't have that freedom I
know this is a little this antithetical
it's sort of like better conditions in
the prison if you will right but
nevertheless you can start by relaxing
some of these things I will say say our
kids don't have complete Freedom
whatever they want to eat whenever they
want to eat but we're going to start
moving more towards that but part of it
is we'll just restrict what kinds of
foods are in the house period and that's
for the adults sake too because I've
noticed that my wife and I end up eating
a lot of the kids food and it shows up
on our waistline because we don't have
the metabolism of a 10-year-old another
thing you could do is just see how much
they eat would they in fact overeat ice
cream often there's a treat during the
day and let's say there's cookies and
there's a limit to how many cookies just
like notice you know if there's no limit
how many cookies do the kids eat it just
might be that they don't eat that many
cookies or you could take a week and say
you know what let's just try a week and
not put any limits on things and see how
much the kids eat and one thing I think
with food is to what I noticed with
family with kids around food is that
they would try to get the kids to eat in
a certain way to forestall problems
later on like you want the kid to eat
now so they're not hungry later but
they're get hungry later anyway so you
had two problems you had to kind of the
fight about eating now and you had to
deal with the hunger later where you
know maybe they're not going to be
hungry later in other words maybe the
problems that you're envisioning around
food won't show up yeah it's also not
how adults eat like I don't stuff myself
at 5:00 p.m. so I won't be hungry at
8:00 p.m. right I do control contr my
own eating based on what I'm hungry and
what I'm not there's a natural signal
and I think there's some frustration
because parents often have to cook and
there's a certain amount of time when
the food is ready so the creativity
might be in changing the kind of food
that you make or if the kids are old
enough even teaching them to cook a
little bit for themselves or having the
food ready to go but the final step
isn't done until they are hungry I mean
if you just wait long enough they'll be
hungry so that will solve that just like
if you wait long enough if they're
eating Oreos they'll get stuffed and
they won't want to eat anymore and I
think all of us have some story from our
childhood of where we overid it on
something and then we learned our lesson
right whatever it was whether it was a
drug or alcohol or food or sugar or what
have you what are some other common
objections and tactics that you found to
be useful in those cases I think
basically another way to build in more
freedom is to not focus on rules and
instead focus on blocks of time I notic
that my parents when they're interacting
with my kids they're not trying to get
them dressed they're not trying to get
them fed they don't have an agenda
they're just spending time with them and
it's pretty magical the things that
would emerge and I'm asking myself how
come they're not doing that when I'm
spending time with them and that's
because in the back of my mind I'm
always thinking you know this thing is
coming up dinner's coming up they got to
get dressed to go outside they got to go
to bed and so I'm constantly in a state
of managing them and if I more clearly
kind of pretend to be in grandparent
time I just spend 10 minutes not trying
to get them to do anything and instead
being with them and trying to help them
explore you know help them with whatever
they happen to be interested in agenda
free blocks of time where you basically
say agenda free blocks of time yeah I'll
start the planning for dinner you know
in an hour or in 30 minutes I'll start
figuring out how to get them into a car
in an hour but right now I'm just going
to spend agenda-free time so there isn't
always this threat looming over them
where at any moment Mom or Dad could be
forcing them to do something there is
some free time some play time for the
adults frankly in addition to playtime
for the kids yeah exactly the other one
would be in general it is trying to
understand the problem you know whenever
there's something that you want your kid
to do there's always a benefit there's
always a value in finding out what it is
about the thing that they prefer to do
yeah I I think it spoils down too is
rather than just slipping into rules
going on autopilot and absorbing the
rest of the rules that are laid down by
social norms and conventions you should
always be trying to Freedom maximize
your kid you should always be testing to
see if they're capable of handling
themselves and not necessarily to
exactly your requirements but just not
getting injured or getting into some
short-term trouble by constantly
relaxing rules and looking for Creative
Solutions to solve the problem problem
and the book is full of ideas to do that
the philosophy is full of ideas to do
that some people like you are living
100% and your children are being treated
like little guest adults running around
your house and in my case you know maybe
it's 60% of the way there and you know
I've gone there from 40% of the way
there maybe we'll get the rest of the
way there and I'd be interested in
learning more tips more hacks more
tricks more attempts more changes but it
is grounded in a coherent philosophy
around these are essentially adults with
less knowledge and it is our job as
parents to help them learn to navigate
the world and to do that in a gradual
incremental way rather than laying down
the rules and running their life for
them until they're suddenly either
thrust into the real world and then have
to figure it all out from scratch
including how to control their own
screen time and control their own eating
control their own sleep schedule and all
of that or when they become teenagers
they just rebel against you and then
they go and do the exact opposite of
everything you force them to do and
resent you afterwards in terms of
incremental change the thing that I tell
my friends a lot is I suggest that
whenever they're want to make their kids
do something they try it in a different
way in other words there's a uniformity
to rules like you have to wear your
mittens when you go outside or you have
to wear shoes when you go outside
instead just try different things or one
is like getting the kid in the car and
putting the kid in the car seat and you
know you could try explaining what we're
doing you could try giving them an iPad
try some snacks in the car you could try
putting on a movie on the overhead thing
in the car you could try making a game
Let's Race to the car right you could
try um yeah you could try having told
them about it beforehand maybe gotten
their consent on what time you're going
to leave exctly yeah you could have
tried going for a walk for 10 minutes
together and then get the car as opposed
to just jump straight in the car there
you go um if the car if we're going to
work or we're going to school we can
build in a trip beforehand school's a
bad idea but if we going somewhere on an
errand oh you like going to the
playground well let's go to the
playground and then we'll go to this
thing and then we'll come home in other
words if you're always trying new things
then you're even if you're failing and
you force the kid that's completely
different than saying you got to do what
I say right we're getting in the car get
in the car when I say something you have
to listen to me
that is kind of a guaranteed failure
whereas trying something new every time
has the possibility of succeeding it's
more about discovering when you succeed
you learn more about your kids's
interests your kid sees you as a more
fun person your kid sees you as somebody
that they're more willing to listen to
and take their advice I think that's a
big thing is that instead of enforcing
the same Rule and the same way every
single time you think of a new way and
just try something new each time at the
center of all this there just seems to
me that even as adults we are still
struggling with the same issues and
we're trying to protect our kids from
struggles that we ourselves never quite
exit I still struggle with screen time I
still struggle with sleep time I still
struggle with eating I still struggle
with doing doing my chores yeah constant
struggle and it's a struggle that's been
ongoing my entire life and I've learned
and I've changed but yet my kid is
supposed to follow orders and then
miraculously develop a habit that I
never did or even put it differently
it's hard to know how to sleep we can
just admit that many adults we know
don't sleep
well what is the solution it's hard to
know it's hard to know for yourself the
best way to sleep now how do you know
for somebody else the best way to sleep
that is the trick it's hard to know for
yourself the best way to eat it's really
hard to know how somebody else should
eat and just over and over and over you
know adults struggle with screens
exactly what should a kid's relationship
be with screens the truth is not even
the truth from a safety perspective the
one thing that kids have that we adults
don't have is the kids have a trusted
guide right when sleep is going really
bad they have an adult that can help
problem solve when food is going really
badly they have an adult that can help
problem solve if it's about being
overweight if it's about being hungry if
it's about not finding foods that they
like at least you have an adult that you
can talk to and you want to preserve
that openness and that trust and that's
really the way that I see it with my
kids I see it as a safety issue that I
want to make sure that my kids always
see me as somebody who can help when
they're having a trouble with anything
in life from food to the neighbor to a
girlfriend to drugs what about what's
really popular fear today popularized
fear the current moral Panic around
so there was a time when it was about
kids being addicted to television before
that it was kids being addicted to radio
there was a time when kids were even
considered addicted to books I think
Young Abraham Lincoln maybe this pointed
out in your book you know his parents
hated that he was always reading I
remember when I was a kid my mom would
yell at me to go outside and play
because I was reading too much she meant
well obviously and but yeah I don't like
playing with the other kids I like
reading and I was reading what would be
considered junk reading by today's
standards but the current one is screens
things like Tik Tok and Instagram and
YouTube are completely weaponized these
are basically very short form content
they're dopamine you know flooding your
brain with dopamine can't look away
addicted to it locked in what do you say
to that yeah without being Cavalier
about it what I would challenge people
who are worried about screen addiction
and video game addiction and internet
addiction is to say what would be a
thing that somebody could really like a
lot and be be upset when it's taken away
from them that they're not addicted to
in other words having a girlfriend or a
boyfriend who's you know breaks up with
you is that an addiction when you're you
know separated from that person and you
have longing and you're irritable and
you keep on thinking about them or is
there something else going on and so I
think the word Addiction is expanded
yeah it used to mean something that
created biological withdrawal symptoms
where literally your receptors had
downregulated and you couldn't function
at all normally and you would be
completely in a helpless State unless
you got the drug back um right
regardless of the contents of your mind
if an alcoholic is separated from
alcohol they're going to go into a
physiological withdrawal regardless of
what they think about alcohol how much
they want to quit how much they agree
Etc same thing with a smoker a nicotine
addict Etc whereas there are people who
play a lot of video games who just get
bored of video games or get bored of
that particular video game and walk away
from it or you know being addicted to
like fast food that was a nice a common
one the people that will stop eating a
lot of fast food and immediately start
feeling better and so just because you
are partaking in something repeatedly
doesn't mean you have a physiological
dependence on it I I will say compared
to my friends my kids have a lot more
freedom in terms of what they eat and
how much games they play like they
probably play video games four five six
hours a day and I've noticed that the
older one the eldest his tastes have
expanded he's gone from eating mostly
desserts and chocolate and ice cream and
noodles to now he's at least moved
towards bacon and toast and olives and
pickles and you know started developing
some more sophisticated flavors or
flavor pallette and in the video game
genre he's gone from the very simplistic
video games to now he wants more and
more open-ended worlds he wants more
building he wants more exploring things
like Roblox and Minecraft are much
deeper games than some of the very
narrow games you're just kind of doing
the same thing over and over which is
not to say he doesn't do the Mindless
games from time to time but just like an
adult his flavor palette is expanding
his taste palette is expanding and as
these very very simple things their
ability of surprise goes away even with
Tik Tok I would bet I don't use Tik Tok
and you know I use YouTube a lot but
YouTube shorts don't appeal to me once
in a while if I'm very busy I'll scroll
through one two or three but very
quickly you realize there's sort of
these empty little snacks there's not
enough there it might be enough like if
you have no time or if you're just
mildly interested in a topic and you
want to see the most sensationalist
thing on that topic but very quickly you
actually end up moving towards some
subject where you have interest and then
you dive deep and then you go to longer
and longer videos and God forbid you
might even end up in a blog post or a
book so they're good for exploration but
not necessarily for diving deep in fact
I think when people talk about these
horrible addictions it's always someone
else that they use as an example you
rarely see anyone come forward and say
yes I am an complete Tick Tock addict I
can't peel my eyes away I consume it for
eight hours a day I consume complete
junk and none of it has a certain
redeeming value and when I look away my
body goes into extreme withdrawal and
I'm just looping on the same thing over
and over and God the Chinese have just
invented the perfect algorithm to keep
me trapped in here for the rest of my
life and I'm done it's not that you do
see people throwing themselves into
alcohol recovery programs voluntarily
you do see people trying to get off of
drugs voluntarily saying to their
friends hey please help me get off this
drug you don't see that at all with Tik
Tok zero never so nobody's admitting it
it's always somebody else they're
pointing to which is why it kind of
makes me feel a little bit more like
it's a moral Panic going on than it is
true addiction underneath the thing
about the social media apps the idea
that they're addicted to likes and
badges and things like that but a like
requires you to understand
who the like is coming from like a
teenager who gets a like from a love
interest right is going to be much more
interested in that than alike from some
random classmate or somebody that they
don't know it's not like the stimulus
for a dog ringing the bell and giving
the dog a treat it's just the content of
the sound of the Bell and the taste of
the treat and there's no understanding
at work but with social media there's an
extraordinary amount of understanding at
work and to get the like in the first
place you have to create something like
worthy which means
be a photo it could be a joke it could
be a string of text right so the this is
not just this nothing like the dog and
the bell and the and the and the
conditioning this is how can I present
myself to my peers in a way that makes
me interesting which is what happens in
school all day long school is all about
presenting myself to my peers and
looking for feedback and there's plenty
of risks that go along with that and
with social media you actually as the
parent are there you're not in school I
don't know what's happening you know I
said my kid was at summer camp or even
in kindergarten and I really don't know
and I'm you know I'm trusting others I
think it's a step forward in safety that
my kid is interacting with people on her
tablet in a way that especially if if
she doesn't see me as an adversary she
wants to show me how it's all going I
can see and participate easier well I
think a lot of parents would actually be
happy if their kid ended up as an
influencer creating amazing content but
how are they going to get there unless
they create bad content first and how
are they going to create bad content
first until they've consumed enough
content that they have a sense of what
they're interested in and what their
taste is like especially if we're headed
into a world of AI making everything
that's been done before easy to redo and
robots then your taste really matters
judgment matters I learned strategy by
playing a lot of War games and I use
strategy for things like trading and
building businesses and to me at least
just like Sports is leftover training
for physical combat from older societies
you know Gladiators and Olympics and
then you know playing basketball is like
teamwork and so on and that trains you
so if you need to get into a martial
conflict you can go to war You're
athletic you're fit this is in your off
season you're training and your on
season you might be fighting or hunting
the same way I view video games and
books and media as training for
intellectual combat you're getting ready
to go build a business or go solve a
problem or go build something new and to
do that you have to know what's out
there and how people have built things
and presented them before even to the
extent that I've been successful in
Twitter it's by being a good
communicator of new ideas new ideas I
absorb from all over and then
communication comes from just having
read and consumed a lot and having paid
attention to what's really good and
what's not I didn't go to a class on how
to write tweets I just read a lot of
authors and a lot of poems until I found
the best ones and I started really
appreciating what set them apart from
the rest and then I just absorbed that
and it's only much much much later that
I went back and read the so-called
greats like Shakespeare and Yates and so
I like oh that's why they're so
successful oh now I get why they're
masters of rhetoric but I didn't know
that I just read a lot and some part of
my brain just absorbed it there's a
famous Rick Rubin clip going around
where he says like you know he's
basically rewarded for his taste well
how did he get that taste just by
listening to a lot of music and I'm sure
his parents thought he was an absolute
goof off when he was just listening to
music all day long but sometimes that's
what it takes with the total freedom
yeah as far as tactics for screen use
with kids I think one easy thing to do
is to just be interested in what your
kid is watching obviously it's easier
with younger kids but just sit down and
and watch with them without any judgment
without any you know I'm going to take
this away and just kind of like ask
about the characters ask about the story
and as you find what the kid is
interested in in this content you can
recreate that content outside of the
screens you can buy the characters right
the toys that represent the different
characters and now you have the
characters to do imaginative play if
that's you know more important to you
that the kid is having that or or can
interact with grandparents or other
family members or you with the
characters and so it pulls the
experience out of this passive consuming
of what's on the screen and now you're
actively doing it and you never know you
know just sitting down and watching the
stuff with a kid you never know what
ideas will come to mind there is a level
of fakery that goes on there though
sometimes you end up interrogating kids
like hey what's your favorite ice cream
the K you just like why are you asking
me this question you wouldn't ask it to
an adult not unless it's some girl
you're hitting on or some famous person
you're trying to make conversation with
them and it would be very awkward but we
do that to our kids all the time right
we ask them questions where we're not
really interested in the answer we're
just trying to either solicit
conversation or get them to think a
certain way or it's a we're leading the
witness and it's painful yeah no I think
it's more can you tell me what do you
like about this why is this interesting
what's this guy doing what's this
character doing but I think the hard
part there is a genuine you have to
genuinely be interested I don't think
kids are dumb they see right through
that a lot of times like we we'll have
visitors or guests and they're kind of
trying to make conversation with the
kids and it's painful because they're
asking questions where they're not
genuinely interested in the answer and
the child's response maybe the child
doesn't see through it in a reasoned way
but they instinctively know this
person's not interested in the answer
because the child themselves is not
interested in the answer and so it's it
ends up being a very awkward stilted
conversation a lot of parents are scared
of the infantile content that their kids
are watching right like Coco lemon Coco
melon Coco lemon is this like um endless
YouTube thing that just is so vapid and
empty and I think what's important there
is that it's empty for us because they
40 years old and I've seen these stories
a thousand times and these things are
very boring to us but there was a time
where this was cutting edge you know an
age where this was so new and
interesting and eventually they get
tired of it you know it may takes weeks
even months but that's what their mind
is ready for and so you want them to get
accustomed to that and then move on to
the next thing you can't just insert a
deep rich piece of content like a movie
or a show or a book you can't start
denovo you can't just start there you
have to kind of work your way up and so
I see a lot of my kids consuming media
is working their way up just their sense
of humor yeah if the addiction model was
completely true then the 40-year-old
adult will still be hooked on Coco melon
and wouldn't be able to get off exactly
exactly but they've moved on and
flipping that around Elon Musk is
playing these video games right AB your
point Diablo player is this a
distraction for him or is this training
for geopolitics right like it it's hard
to say that that's a distraction for him
I would bet the vast majority of the
hackers in the software industry have at
one point or another been obsessed with
games yes it's just at some point they
take their obsession with it from
consumption into creation and as a
society we we value the output because
it's so measurable and so easy to see
especially after the fact we don't value
the inputs because it's it's a messy
process you don't know what's going in
there exactly another thing is this idea
of situational awareness like at work
and I guess working with teams you know
being a productive participant in the
workforce is being able to assess
priorities and we all know of Blockheads
at work or in other regards that are
just like single-mindedly focused on one
thing and can't see the bigger picture
and I think that's one of the values of
games is that you're taking in new
information and you're reassessing and
you're you're strategizing strategizing
is rep prioritizing and I think that is
a massive skill for anyone to be able to
adjust your priorities as life changes
it's always changing and once you get
married your priorities shift and you
have to learn how to account for your
in-laws and account for your new job and
account for your new neighbor and your
kid is now doing this you know playing
soccer and you're just you're always
trying to you know move things up and
down this kind of hierarchy or schema of
importance I think games are a big part
of that and I think if you to your point
about adults if you see an adult who's
following a lot of rules and enforcing a
lot of rules that's not an adult you
want to be around that's a bureaucrat we
don't respect that in adults and adults
we want you to have created your own
rules for yourself which are Dynamic and
evolving and follow them based on your
objectives you have to have the social
skills to figure out what other people's
rules are and how to navigate through
those and it's a dynamic situation it
changes all the time and not imposing
your little rules on everybody else like
a hall monitor so I think with adults we
don't value in fact what is cool cool is
someone who authentically breaks the
rules and gets away with it right not in
a harmful way but gets away with it cool
people don't listen to your rules the
same time if someone breaks a rules too
much or breaks the wrong rules they end
up in prison so it is a thing about
navigating like for example one of the
things that's hard with kids is explain
to them oh yeah that's a rule that
Society has but we break it you know or
this is a rule Society has but you
absolutely cannot break it and try to do
the distinction between the two is very
difficult exactly in this circumstance
we're going to break the rule but in
that circumstance we not and
understanding how those circumstances
have changed is you're also vulnerable
if you're rule following I know lots of
people who play by the rules get a job
and then get laid off and now you're in
big trouble because you kind of have
stuck with these expectations whereas
people who kind of allow themselves
would be distracted have multiple and
varied interests are able to fall back
on other career options other skills or
are just constantly evolving in their
career instead of kind of sticking with
this diligent conformist you know you
may be achieving a lot of the right
outcomes but still be vulnerable and at
risk to change yeah and it's not to put
parents down I mean I think all parents
want their kids to be creative problem
solvers it's just lead with creativity
and problem solving rather than lead
with rules and a lot of the rules are
just well-meaning brought down from
society you know nap time at 1: p.m.
yeah let the kid cry it out don't sleep
with your kid I think in your book you
mentioned you didn't sleep with your
kids because you were afraid of Sids in
our case was the opposite because I grew
up in India everyone sleeps with their
kids when they're growing up and has
been doing it for 100 Generations we
don't have any concept of not sleeping
with your kids it's it's considered
right barbaric to let your kid cry it
out so they feel like a Tiger's going to
eat them and then when they finally give
up you come back in right so it's funny
because a lot of the modern rules around
child raising I think are just actually
counterproductive for example there's
been a lot of propaganda that formula is
better than cow's milk well formula
didn't exist 100 years ago look at a
list of ingredients on formula it's seed
oils and it's just garbage right and not
even seed oil it's process it survives
at room temperature and a powdered form
for a long period of time like it's not
food by any rational definition so I
think there's a lot of modern rules
around you know don't sleep with your
kid force them to nap give them a
consistent nap time formula is better
than cow milk things like that which are
easily challenged these should not be
rules these shouldn't be rules any more
than the FDA Food Pyramid or rules that
you know cardio is better for you than
weightlifting or weightlifting is better
for you than cardio or that natural
immunity we had this during covid herd
immunity natural immunity is worse than
vaccines I don't know if you remember
that there the time when your natural
immunity wouldn't count you had to go
get a vaccine right so I'm not sure I
would follow the rules that fast because
even if you think rules are good and
even if you think rules make your life
more convenient a lot of the rules that
you're being fed are actually just flat
out wrong so you have to be creative
yourself and figure it out anyway when
do you encourage that questioning in
your kid it's quite interesting right do
you encourage that when they go off to
college do you encourage them to
question when they're teenagers wouldn't
it be nice to be able to genuinely
encourage the questioning from the
beginning you know as early as you can
and it doesn't mean that it's just you
know sink or swim there's an alternative
you're still involved you're still
trying to solve problems with them but
you're not giving them this idea that
there's one set way of doing things
until you kind of reach a point where
you get to question them you know later
on in your life yeah know you have to
teach them from the start that all
information is subject to challenge all
new information starts out as
misinformation there's no such thing as
perfect knowledge people on the internet
are constantly struggling people in life
are who do I believe the latest thing
came down is this true did Trump really
do that did Biden do this is there
really a UFO they're hiding over there
were the Pyramids giant batteries you
know is it many worlds interpretation or
is it Observer collapse quantum theory
you're always debating you're always
trying to figure out what's true and
what's not and that's the central
challenge to life and if we could just
say oh yeah bad misinformation well
great you figured out a truth machine
which is impossible you figured out
what's true and false in advance you can
ban whatever is false fine then you
basically declared yourself omniscient
and the world doesn't work that way
children just like adults are constantly
going to be struggling with trying to
figure out what's true and what's false
and if your evaluation sensors on that
are dialed too loose then you may end up
believing in completely false things and
having a tough life but if they're
dialed too tight then you're just
following a bunch of rules and you can't
absorb new information as it comes along
and the best way to figure out how to
tune that is to basically just
constantly be learning to be a learning
machine and to embrace being a learning
machine and embrace being wrong and so
yeah I mean look at how many parents
disagree with their kids throughout
their lives right there'll be a
different political Persuasions they'll
have different sexual orientation
they'll have different belief systems
they'll have one will want to say okay
let's go live in the woods the the ones
like no I'm going to go live in this big
city I'm never going to get married or I
got married and you know had kids I'm
never going to have kids you're
constantly going to see that you're not
going to align with your kids and trying
to control them the first N9 years of
their Liv
expecting some magical outcome where
then they will turn into miniature
versions of you is misguided by the way
you're no longer adapted for the
environment they're going to live in
you're adapted for the environment you
live in if we were adapted identically
to our parents we would not survive in
modern society which is why kids tend to
end up listening much more to their
peers than they do to their parents and
I think one of the hacks here is you
curate their environment you curate
their peers rather than trying to curate
their thinking and you trying to curate
they're eating and they're sleeping and
so on anyway uh not to get too abstract
this is a good series of tactics hacks
thanks so much eron I know you're active
let let me give you one more that I
think might help everybody wants their
kids to be happy creative or productive
in some way and independent these are
outcomes that most people would agree on
and leaving Independence aside because
kids can't be independent I think that
taking children seriously looks at
saying well can we make them happy and
creative or productive early on in the
beginning instead of waiting until
they're you know in college or they're
in their 20s to now it's your time to be
happier or creative like why not work on
that from the beginning in other words
take that outcome very seriously early
on instead of filtering in other
outcomes and expectations and then
hoping that happiness and creativity
tumbles out of that later on it's just
simply saying or prioritizing these
crucial outcomes from the beginning and
then H happiness and creativity cannot
be forced that's the amazing thing about
it like as an adult if you were saying I
want to become happy you can't find
somebody who can make you happy right if
you say like I want to be happy I'm
going to go find someone who's going to
make me happy I'm G to find a girl or or
a boy is going to make me happy I'm G to
find the job I'm G to find the right car
that's going to make me we all know that
that is a failed Endeavor you know we
are not able to make our kids happy
either you cannot make another person
happy a person must discover this
internally you can't make somebody
creative or productive they must
discover their own interests and their
own passions you can't be creative on
schedule either you can't say here's a
clock starting the timer you have to do
your creative work now you can't be
forced to be interested in something it
has to be internal interests are always
internal you could be exposed to
something that you agree is interesting
but you can't just be forced to be
interested and so I think those crucial
outcomes it's a safe way of looking at
the world to say how can we embed these
crucial outcomes at the beginning rather
than waiting and hoping they're the
result of schooling of the right
nutrition of the right health of the
right screen relationship it's a way of
flipping it around and saying how can we
start with happiness and creativity and
uh fostering it instead of forcing it I
know there's a lot of grind porn on the
inter these days where people are like
you got to grind you got to like set 4
hours aside every morning to write and
then you know 2 hours to meditate and
then you have to keep grinding and
working and then 300 hours or 10,000
hours later you're a genius and then you
get it out but the reality is every
person I know who is super creative who
has done incredibly creative work they
spend lots of time goofing off lazing
around doing nothing and then they got
obsessed with something and when they
were obsessive they weren't doing the
structured to 3 4 hours a day they were
just working on it every waking moment
and obsessing over it until they did it
and then they were back to being lazy
and I think that's a much more natural
model for how humans work and as you
said there's no happiness outside of
yourself can't be forced to be happy no
one can make you happy can't be forced
to be creative can't be forced to be
interested these are natural emerging
properties of someone who is interested
relaxed and free yeah amen great thank
you so much Aaron it's fantastic as
always thank you so much Nal oh
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