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Join me, Jess VanderWier, a registered psychotherapist, mom of three, and founder of Nurtured First, along with my husband Scott, as we dive deep into the stories of our friends, favourite celebrities, and influential figures.
In each episode, we skip the small talk and dive into vulnerable and honest conversations about topics like cycle breaking, trauma, race, mental health, parenting, sex, religion, postpartum, healing, and loss.
We are glad you are here.
PS: The name Robot Unicorn comes from our daughter. When we asked her what we should name the podcast, she confidently came up with this name because she loves robots, and she loves unicorns, so why not? There was something about the playfulness of the name, the confidence in her voice, and the fact that it represents that you can love two things at once that just felt right.
Hello and welcome.
Welcome.
Jess, I'm gonna take over this intro because if you do it, it's gonna be another hour-long episode.
Oh boy.
Okay
Here we go.
Just the intro.
Just the intro.
Yeah, yeah.
So this is part two of our three part series on trilogy
Our trilogy.
Yes, thank you.
Of sensitive children.
And in this episode, we really dove deeper into how parenting styles actually affect sensitive children.
And then we explored some
I don't know what you call them, emotional dynamics and like why sensitive children are maybe more prone to rejection sensitivity and
We talked about the toughening up is not necessarily the answer or it isn't the answer and why.
I don't know.
There's a lot of different things we talked about in this episode too.
I want to give one little teaser.
Sure.
In this episode we did a role play
Where Scott was like a Was that this?
That was a separate or Scott was like a toxic masculinity dad
And I was his therapist and we kinda went through to like help him see why toxic masculinity is not the answer.
It was fascinating.
Oh, that was the toughness
That was the toughen up section and I just re-listened to it and it was so good and I was so happy that Scott finally agreed to do it.
And obviously
I n I might pull the plug and we may just cancel this entire episode because of that.
Well we'll see.
Okay.
Well if if you're listening then it's still there.
So have a listen.
Let us know what you think of the role play and we'll see who's in charge.
We know it's me.
You'll have to let us know what you think.
But I really liked this episode.
I resonate with the rejection sensitivity part and the entire episode was great and really practical and helpful.
So let's get to it.
Oh, one thing we should talk about, Jess.
This is part two.
If you haven't listened to part one yet, we would definitely recommend that you go back and listen to that one because that episode is a lot more
of the foundations to understanding sensitivity.
And some things that we're talking about in this second part may make more sense if you've listened to the first part already.
Yeah so start with the first one, part one, and then come back and listen to this episode.
And let's get into it.
Cool
Welcome to Robot Unicorn, hosted by my parents, Jess and Scott.
I hope you enjoyed the episode
The research uses a metaphor that I'm sure you love.
Hit me up with it.
I know what it is already here.
And Dandelion children.
I do love.
Uh and a major 2016 meta-analysis confirmed that this isn't just a nice idea.
It's like a real concept that
can explain sensitive versus less sensitive children.
Can you break down what this for better and for worse idea means for a parent raising an orchid child and why this is such a game changer?
So if you need a reminder, for better is if you're using warm, authoritative parenting style, that in the end, the the parenting you use with the orchid child will help them
even more.
So they may be even more, let's say, quote unquote, successful and they will have potentially better life outcomes from the way you parent.
But they will also have the exact
Opposite of that, which is if you parent them terribly and you either give in to them or you are authoritarian and you're the dictator in the house and it's because they said so, that will
then cause far worse outcomes for the highly sensitive or ORCID child.
I think that it's so important to talk about that.
And I think about our ORCID kids, it's just
Of course, they're so sensitive and part of this sensitivity is they're truly looking to their parent as the leader and as the person who's gonna guide them and help them through whatever's going on for them.
And
are easygoing or more flexible children, of course they're also looking to the parent, right?
And of course the way that the parent parents them or disciplines them is going to have an impact on them as well
But our more flexible children also have something within them that allows them to kind of cope with things not going well or more difficult things.
a little more internally and like and they can handle maybe that a little bit better.
It doesn't affect them as much.
And like a dandelion they can grow essentially anywhere.
Yeah like a dandelion they can kind of flourish in
all sorts of environments.
That's not to say that they can't flourish more with authoritative parenting like we always talk about, right?
Like that's still important.
So don't just be like, oh my, oh perfect.
I have a flexible child.
Like we're good to go.
But let's think of the sensitive child and like we had already talked about the sensitive kids, the way that they perceive emotions, the way I find that I constantly talking about rejection sensitivity with my parents I worked with of sensitive kids.
Right.
And so the rejection sensitivity, what that means is when they feel that there's possibly someone rejecting them, and rejection can look all sorts of ways.
Like it can look like their parent.
just not listening to them.
It can look like, you know, that little flippant comment that you make to your child about something that you don't think they're gonna think is a big deal, but now they can't stop thinking about it.
They handle rejection and take rejection in such a deep way.
And so for some children, when they feel rejected by their parents or by peers or by teachers, it comes out in like this shield that I almost imagined going up and it's like
I refuse to let you reject me anymore.
And so they act like they don't care.
They act like there's nothing that you could do or say that's gonna hurt them.
And these kids I find are the hardest for teachers, especially to handle, because they're like, I send them to the principal's office, I do this, I tell them they're not doing a good job, I tell them to respect their peers, they act like they don't care.
But what we need to understand and what I love to do as a therapist is help to educate teachers and parents to be like underneath this exterior
is an inside story of a child who cares so much.
And they have to pretend like they don't care.
Because if they could be vulnerable enough
to say how much they actually care, that would be too hard because they they don't know that they can express those feelings, right?
So it's easier to come off as if they don't care.
And same for the way other children who internalize any possible rejection from their parents might go to being shut
down being like okay well then it's just best off if I'm alone in my room all the time.
It's best off if I have my defenses so high that no one can can hurt me but they kind of retreat.
So I think that the rejection piece of sensitive kids is huge and we need to talk about that more often.
And parents need to be very mindful of that when they're disciplining their kids.
And this is where you said we can have the far worse outcomes
So you might, let's say you have a mild-tempered, whatever, flexible, easy child, and you say something like, hey, you should not have poured the milk like that, because now look, it's all over the counter and you have to clean it up
Your easy, flexible child might be like, oh yeah, yeah, probably shouldn't have done that.
You know, whatever, mom, I'll clean it up.
Whereas your sensitive child might hear the same thing.
And might be like, oh my goodness, you know, Mom said I have to clean this up.
Oh, now she's mad at me.
And I don't know if I can handle her being mad at me and this is so hard and I can't believe I made this mistake.
Like
Why would I make a mistake like this?
And they kind of start to spiral and then they go run and hide under the table, right?
I I remember when our sensitive child loved to hide under tables.
Anytime we would just say the most simple thing to her
I mean she still does it less frequently now, but she will still do it sometimes.
this childhood discipline the same way as I do my easygoing one?
Or do I need to work with their sensitivity and let them know I can tell them they did something wrong?
And they're still loved.
And I'm still on their team.
Well, isn't that how you should be able to do that?
Yeah, but you might not need to do that for your easygoing child, because they might just already know that.
Right?
So you're saying you already have a style of parenting because maybe your oldest is this way.
Yeah.
So you're not saying to change the way you parent each kid.
Necessarily.
But you might just notice you have to do some things different.
If you have multiple kids and one of them is sensitive with your sensitive child
You might go to the table that they're hiding under and sit next to them and be like, hey, just so you know, I'm on your team.
I'm not mad at you.
Sometimes we spill milk that like mistakes are just part of being human.
That's okay
And when I ask you to clean up the milk that you spilled, I'm not mad about it.
That's just part of being human.
And whenever I make a mistake, I have to clean it up too.
So I'm on your team here.
So wh why don't we get out from under the table together
and and let's go wipe down the counter together.
And what you do in that moment when you're coaching them through how to respond to a situation is you're saying
You can tolerate me telling you you did something wrong, right?
So we're not gonna bubble wrap them and just never tell our sensitive child they did something wrong for fear of how they're gonna handle it.
Yeah
And I'm gonna t show you through my actions, that doesn't mean I hate you or don't love you or that you're terrible because you've made a mistake.
I'm gonna show you that you can handle this.
And you still love them
And I still love you.
And eventually the sensitive child might learn to be able to handle when you say something like, hey, let's clean up the milk.
And they might be able to take that on themselves and be like
Okay, mama asked me to clean up the milk and she's still on my team and she still loves me and sometimes everybody makes mistakes, so it's okay, I can just clean up the milk.
Right.
That's an example of how just these kids just perceive our discipline in such a deep way
That they are going to require more coaching and more support and more things like Ganda still love you and I'm on your team and I'm right here with you
And I know you're capable of hard things.
And if we don't do that, I can see where you're coming from that the outcomes for them could be far worse because
Maybe they grow up their whole life thinking That's not even an opinion.
That's actually like that's based on a huge meta-analysis in twenty sixteen.
They saw that if parents were authoritative
So they were high on warmth and high on demandingness.
There were far better outcomes for the children that were sensitive.
Sensitive.
Yeah.
So I think that's important for parents who have a sensitive kid to understand
Because I feel like and you tell me what you think, Scott, because you see this just in day-to-day life.
People often have two approaches for sensitive kids.
So it's either like they need to toughen up and the real world can't be this sensitive.
And so they just kind of are like forced them to do the hard things and hey, don't be so sensitive.
That's not gonna work for you in the real world.
And then on the flip side
they see their child as sensitive, they see them as the orchid or the delicate flower and they're like, so I must, you know, be the glass case around this delicate flower so that nothing ever happens to them because I don't think they could handle it if if something went wrong.
So
authoritative parenting, which we're talking about, is the middle ground where you're still having expectations on them, you're still having structure, but you're doing it with so much warmth that they know that they can handle the hard things.
I mean, yes, of course.
And I mean now I've
Been reading a lot of research on this too.
Because it's not just be the authoritative parent.
It's not that.
Like there's other things that we'll get into later that help you kind of be that way, but there's some small strategies you can use to help
your children, whether they're sensitive or not, but that will actually benefit them and help them learn to be able to use their sensitivity for even bigger and better things, for more creative endeavors.
I just love and we're we're gonna get to this, but seeing sensitivity is a gift.
I feel like when I learn that about myself, like, oh Jess, the things that make you so sensitive that you've hated about yourself for so long are also a huge gift and something unique about you that sets you apart, you know?
Am I allowed to ask you a question or my question for you?
Well, a story and a question.
Story.
I clearly remember the day I was on a walk.
actually with our friend Claire who shout out Claire, we love you.
And we both had babies, like my our third baby and her baby.
We're born at the exact same time, like a couple weeks apart.
And we were on a walk with our babies and she was like asking about, you know, what's it like to transition to
three and I was like honestly the baby's not my issue and that was the first time like we had a conversation that I I think it dawned on me
I was like, Claire, I think our second daughter is very sensitive and I'm just starting to understand this now.
And it's really helping me make sense of
who she is and who she's been and why it's just so difficult.
Like she's just more difficult as a toddler.
And I remember talking it over with her and Claire has a lot of understanding on on these subjects as well.
And it was such like I almost just felt like crying to be like, man, I just haven't been seeing it.
But when I looked back, I was like, she was everything we talk about.
She was a loud baby.
She was our hardest baby.
And she rolled over.
I think I have a video of her at two weeks old.
being able to you put her on her back and she could roll over and then you put her back on her back and roll over again and she was just always go go go.
Her meltdowns.
Like our oldest had meltdowns, but these meltdowns were like just far beyond what we ever dealt with with our oldest and like
So I think in that moment with Claire when I it just clicked for me and then I came home and I parented her so much differently once I understood that
But I was gonna ask you about those early days when we were just in the throes of those huge explosive meltdowns and not wanting to wear socks, not wanting to wear underwear, not wanting to wear pants, like nothing we could do seemed right.
Like
sticking her foot in a bag of bread one time when she was mad just because she liked the way the bread felt on her foot.
Like Oh, I don't think she understood what she was doing.
No, I don't think she understood, but
I think it was a sensory thing.
And I remember at first, and you correct me if I'm wrong, you being more triggered by that for her.
From her.
From her.
Well, yeah.
I mean
Again, you're talking about a situation with so many variables that are changed from now.
Because we were also, yeah, we had a new baby.
Yeah.
But
We were also moving from our team working out of our house to working out of an office that I had to renovate myself.
like within whatever a few weeks of us having the baby and me having to spend every night there and trying to do all that while during the day also working and making sure kids were going to school and everything.
Like it was But So I think
Yes.
Of course it was triggering, if you want to use that word.
Yeah, not really.
But I just think it was such a different s situation that we lived in at that time.
That I was it because of that specifically?
that probably helped.
It was or I was probably a part of it, but I don't know if if it was in this time of life that we're in now if it would have been the same.
But let me like bring back what I mean about triggering is I feel like during that time
when we kind of started to recognize what was going on, it brought back a lot for you and a lot we had a lot of conversations of like, oh, this was probably what I was like as a child.
And I feel like Yeah, that's what I mean by triggering
of like we had a lot of conversations of oh this is how I was probably like as a child.
And as we responded to her keeping her sensitivity in mind and coaching her through
We talked a lot about how different things might have been for you if you had had that parenting that we talk about here on this podcast, right?
And so that's more what I mean by triggering, like watching her, seeing your child.
feel these things and then be like, oh wow, there's a totally different way of responding.
That's not you're too much, you're too sensitive, you know.
And that's what I mean.
And I feel like a lot of parents get triggered by that.
Like and by triggered I mean it just brings up their own memories of being a sensitive child.
Yeah, I guess.
Probably did.
Mm-hmm.
I mean there was other stuff that was going on too that's a good idea.
Also probably triggered, yeah.
So it I don't know.
It Yeah, it's hard for me to say
I know everything in life so I yeah, it's all intertwined.
It's very complex.
What I will say though is that our middle daughter and I, I feel like have bonded very much over that.
Like even how much she loves
the taste or the texture of certain foods I can relate to where n I don't think anyone else in the family can relate to that.
So the two of us have kind of bonded over
a few of those things and I just find some of them so cute in this little this little girl who's just like so intense or passionate about
Everything she does.
And that's what that's what I was trying to get at.
Like I felt like at first it was, oh man, I was like this as a kid.
And you know, not maybe not knowing how to respond, but then as
you learned how to kind of respond and help her with her sensitivity.
It became this huge way of bonding with her.
And you had this like understanding of, oh, I get why she doesn't want those socks on.
Yeah.
Like I feel like sometimes you'd have to say to me, Jess, like you need to understand the way that those feel on her body is like terrible and awful and like it makes sense that she's so mad about wearing them because
I would never wear socks that look like that either.
You know what I mean?
100%.
So I think that they're Yeah, I talked to you about like the underwear thing too.
And how, yeah, I have
underwear now that I specifically like.
Yeah.
And I tried a different one recently, but didn't work.
So I had to go and buy the ones that I've always bought.
And that's what I mean by like
you were able to coach me on some things that I feel like otherwise I was getting so frustrated with like just wear the underwear.
Like who cares?
Doesn't it doesn't bother me in the same way where you're like just
It bothers her.
It's not just her trying to drive you nuts.
Like so I feel like maybe triggered was a bad way to describe it, but it it gave you a sense of understanding.
Yeah.
For her.
And still.
I feel like she and I have, like I said, bonded over the fact that we're both a little more sensitive to everything, both good and bad.
Hey friends, so at pickup last week our daughter asked Scott a truly kind of tricky question in front of her younger siblings.
Scott was telling me that when he heard a question like this, he used to panic, but this time he had a plan.
And he said to our daughter, thank you for asking.
Let's talk tonight when we've got privacy.
And that's a line that he learned straight from our new body safety and consent course at Nurtur First.
So this new body safety and consent course is taught by me.
So Jess, if you listen to this podcast, you know me.
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There's guidance inside this course for the real life stuff like tickling that goes too far and even the difference between a secret and a surprise.
We made this course at Nurture First because research shows that body safety education helps kids speak
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And just full disclosure here, we are the creators of this course and we're so proud of it.
Okay, let's go back to you were talking about one of the methods for
raising kids that are a little more sensitive is just to get them to toughen up.
And there's definitely I think that persistent myth that sensitive kids need to be toughened up to prepare them for the real world.
Uh I am on YouTube.
And I think as a male, I get more videos of these, I don't know what you want to call them, masculinity experts, influencers, douchebags, whatever you want to call them.
They're truly assholes.
Oh, my word.
Anyways.
There's the feisty.
And it's all about just toughening up.
And how can I say this without getting too political?
There are certain things that are being said
that it's just like oh you just have to deal with it.
That's the way life is.
You just have to toughen up.
We have too many snowflakes now.
Mm the snowflakes, that's always a favorite for me.
We have to teach people that this is the reality
So my question to you, first of all, is what does the science of attachment theory tell us about why that approach backfires?
So getting kids to toughen up and why is creating a secure base
for these kids, so critical, specifically for sensitive children.
Mm-hmm.
I do have a follow-up after this.
Okay.
There's just so much in this question, so I'm just thinking of the best place to start.
I'm thinking about the phrase toughen up, and then I'm thinking about
the aggressive boys that I work with, right?
So a lot of the boys that end up coming into my practice, they come in because they're aggressive and angry.
And
Parents are like, I don't know why they're so aggressive and angry.
And we kind of look back to their earliest years, and what we often learn is they were a sensitive child.
Right.
How do I know that?
Because I'm asking questions about what were they like as a baby?
What were they like as a toddler?
And often what I hear is like we knew he couldn't be this sensitive in real life.
Right.
These are good parents who I think a lot of the time just wanted what was best for their kid, right?
So we knew that he couldn't go through life having these huge explosive meltdowns all the time and like getting mad at everyone
So at an early age, we would try and like force him to like toughen up.
We were pretty hard on him when he would have these meltdowns, because he can't, you know, you can't be a boy and have meltdowns like that.
So stop, you know, be a big boy, stop crying, toughen up
But what's happening actually is we're actually just saying shove it down.
That's like when I hear sh tough it out, I hear shove it like deep, deep down.
Is it shove it down or
I would imagine likely in that scenario the parent is getting angry at their kid for being having a meltdown or being angry or crying.
So then they're seeing that's the acceptable Both, right?
So I'm yelling at you and I'm telling you not to yell
Mm-hmm.
That's confusing.
But I'm yelling at you not to yell.
And so basically what I'm saying is if you yell, then I'm gonna be mad at you.
What do we know about kids?
the most important thing to them is be in good relationship with their parents, right?
Above all else.
So then I'm learning, okay, I have to shut down my emotions and not yell and not get mad.
so that my parents happy with me.
But we're not actually saying where do these emotions go, right?
And I love the idea of like emotions need motion or emo like there there's like a feeling in your body that's paired with this emotion.
So
for so long you can kind of like keep it at bay, but then eventually it has to come out.
And what I've learned now is the only acceptable way as a male for this emotion to come out of my body is through yelling.
Yeah, I would say in historically
And it's still prevalent to this day?
I think there are gendered expectations for how you react to the world
Right.
Men should be tough.
Men men should be tough.
So then now your child has learned, I have to shove it down, my tears, I can't cry.
That's not very manly.
I have to toughen up.
And if I do have to let out my emotion, the only way that's actually okay for me to do that would be through anger because that's what's been modeled to me.
Yep.
And they're gonna have to release those emotions, cause emotions need somewhere to go.
And so you can bottle it up for so long and then you get really mad.
And so then what I
seeing in these aggressive kids is maybe for a little bit they could kind of bottle up their emotions, but eventually it comes out, especially once they get to school age and like they're s also sensitive.
So school is a long day for a sensitive kid
you know, a lot of things can happen that can make you feel rejection.
Your your friend says something, you take it really deep and personal, as we were talking about.
These sensitive boys, they take things very personally.
But they would never tell because they have to be tough, right?
They tell me.
Finally, when we get to therapy and we get to talking about these things, and that's often the first time that they've actually shared something like that.
So it comes out in anger and aggression and then
that feels like too much for them, right?
Then they start getting in trouble.
They're very sensitive to getting in trouble.
So now they also feel like no one loves me.
And what I imagine is just like guards going up, up, up, like defenses, right?
And then I think the worst state that we get to that's the most difficult to come back from for kids is like the I don't care, where they basically appear like apathetic, like they just don't care about anything.
Like
That is a child that's just so highly defended, like so far away from feeling vulnerable with their emotions.
And we can work with it, but I find that
When they're at I don't care and a lot of sensitive kids get there because they have to, because if they care they don't know how to deal with those feelings.
That often comes out in like bullying.
And right, 'cause they're like acting like they don't care.
Now they gotta make someone else feel small the way that they feel.
And it's tough.
But to come back to it, the toughen up thing, that's how we see that play out in
in our sensitive kids and that's why they get attracted to that type of manosphere content that you're talking about because it's like, well maybe that's the answer to my problem, like just to be this tough man.
But I feel like underneath so many of those people are sensitive little boys who have just had to put these defenses so far up and they become that apathetic, like we were talking about.
In reality, they just like they're trying to make so much distance between themselves and vulnerability and crying because it just feels so unsafe to do so.
So if you
had the opportunity to sit across from someone who is an influencer in that space.
Oh my word.
I don't know.
Oh I'd be triggered as a woman, I'm sure.
But well the fact that you say triggered would probably
Be like, this is the exact problem we're trying to combat here.
No, I would never say that's the problem.
How would you convince, in their words, this alpha male
that the way they are raising their child to toughen up is not the best way to raise them.
Because in their mind, I'm just gonna imagine they think that I'm building this child who's going to be resilient
Who's going to be assertive who won't let other people steamroll them through life so they can get ahead?
So
I mean something I'm proud of in my practice is that I do a really great job, I think, with skeptical dads, but I feel like alpha male and skeptical dad are two different things.
Two very different things.
Yeah.
I mean the reality is I could see
having a conversation with this kind of kind of person, you're not gonna be able to convince them.
But I just hypothetically wise, I want to have this conversation with you to see what you would say.
Hypothetically, if I was in that situation, I don't think it would be one conversation.
It would have to be many.
What I would have to do if I ever wanted to get an alpha male to understand what they're doing is wrong.
First I'd have to find my own alpha stance
And I wouldn't be allowed to show them that.
This is like a bully.
Like I always teach kids with bullies.
Like you don't show the bully that they're hurting your feelings, right?
Yeah.
So I would kind of have to find my own alpha leadership stance in that
And I have to do this in therapy too sometimes.
And I would have to show that like their comments aren't gonna have the effect on me that they're hoping for.
So I'd have to start there and like
have a lot of confidence.
The other thing I would have to do is I would have to earn their trust.
And there's no way that I could help that alpha male unless I earn his trust and get down to a point where he could be vulnerable
And so I would have to find ways to talk to him about things that are important to him.
I might have to find an area of like
Is there any softness anywhere?
Like does he have softness towards a sister, a mother?
Like is there anyone in his life who there's a softness to?
And and I'd have to try and find my in through that.
I'd have to maybe help him remember
his earlier years, like before he had to toughen up.
Because all I would know of like those alpha males is that this served them for a really long time and they had to be this way.
And like so it actually come out of it.
Well, and to be fair, I think a bunch of them are probably making bank
preying on people who want to not be steamrolled anymore.
They just they're very sensitive.
They probably cry at night or they uh numb themselves out with
video games and like busyness and I mean that's the other thing I see in these sensitive boys I work with.
Like when the aggression and the feelings get too much, they just numb themselves out with video games.
That's why they love them.
And they that's why they watch countless hours of YouTube.
So I don't have to think.
I don't have to think about how sensitive I am.
So like I think I would just come at it.
I come at those people who feel that way with a lot of compassion and with a lot of understanding that
It serves them to act this way.
They had to act this way to protect themselves.
And they only cannot act that way if they can be safe to feel vulnerable.
Right, but I guess
To play devil's advocate here.
A person in that situation might be like, well, it serves me well, so why would I want to even change what I'm doing because you're saying some attachment theory says this is not necessarily better
Yeah, but I would never come at it with them by like trying to teach them anything new.
Like if I was in a room with them.
Wh which is fine.
But again, how like I guess my question is why is toughening s a child up not acceptable
Because it means then they are stronger individual in their classroom or on the playground or whatever
So they're not going to be the ones getting bullied.
So I can I can foresee how someone in that situation might be like, well, this is actually beneficial for, let's just say, my son, to be this way, because then he's not going to be taken advantage of
Of course.
If anything, he can maybe take advantage of other people, 'cause I don't care.
That's fine.
It's a z it's a zero sum game.
I would say
Of course, we have the same goal.
We don't want your son to be taken advantage of and you want your son to be able to handle hard things and not like run home crying after every single day at school and you want him to have some grit.
and be resilient, I think we have the same goal there.
I think there's multiple ways of achieving that goal.
One way of achieving that goal is through trying to shut down his emotions, yelling at him, trying to make him like a real man's man from a very early age.
But the problem with your goal
Like the way of achieving it that way is that he's still not gonna know how to handle his tough emotions.
So he's gonna have to find other ways to cope.
The way I would want to do and achieve the same goal actually as you, where
He's tough at school, he can handle hard things, he can have hard discussions, and he has resilience and grit.
I would just want to handle that a different way, where from a very early age I'm actually teaching him how to tolerate discomfort
how to cope with difficult emotions, how to actually regulate his own emotions so that when he's at school and someone's yelling at him, he can understand
that that's that other person's feelings.
He doesn't have to take that on for his himself and he can feel secure enough in himself to stand out for himself and stand up for others.
So I actually would say like I totally understand your goal.
I think we're actually moving towards the same place.
There's just two ways of doing it.
one way is going to be more effective for your son long term.
The other one could have some long term negative effects that I don't think is what you're looking for.
But don't you think sometimes life involves getting into a fist fight just to work something out?
What do you think the benefit of a fist fight is?
you are able to get into an argument with someone and be able to just fight each other and then by the time it's done it's over and if you've won, they're not gonna mess with you again and that situation is over.
Right.
So I think in one hand you're talking about you want your son to be able to handle the real world and the tough things that happen in the real world.
And then in the other way you're like, I think my son should be able to just have a fist fight and just move on.
So if Which is a real world situation.
Right, which is a real world situation maybe for a child, but do you want him to still be having a fist fight when he's
a man?
Like w what happens when a man has a fist fight or a teenager has a fist fight as a way to handle conflict?
Like does that feel like a long-term kind of real world?
Sure.
Right.
So if it's necessary to have a fist fight
I guess I I understand your point.
I guess what you're trying to say is sometimes in the real world you have to have a fist fight, but I guess what I'm trying to say is is that the best way to handle conflict in the real world?
And is that a solution that you want your son to be using
long term.
Right?
So every time he disagrees with someone what if he dis disagrees with his boss one day?
Would you do you want him to get in a fist fight with his boss or with his course that's a different situation, but he should be able to tell his boss, assert what he thinks is right
And be able to tell his boss that.
Right, for sure.
He should definitely be able to state how he feels and feel like he can do so confident.
I want that for your son too.
But what I want for your son is something that's going to help him long term.
And and what I worry about with your approach of like sometimes you just need to get in the fist fight and move on.
It's like, okay, maybe your son
moves on, maybe you move on if you're in a fist fight.
But that doesn't mean the rest of the people around him move on as well.
And what we know about people and and what I want for your son also is to be someone who's respected
and who people, you know, see as someone that they want to be around and and a leader and whose opinion they respect.
And I know for a lot of people, a lot of men that I talk to, if they see someone who's constantly just in a fight
fist fighting with someone, their level of respect for that person goes down and maybe they're less likely to actually want to hear what they have to say.
And so if you want your son to be in a position of leadership somewhere where he's respected and people want to look up to him and hear what he has to say
I don't know if that's gonna be your best strategy for him long term.
Nice.
Okay.
I think we can stop I could have gone in a few different directions, but that's how I'd handled those conversations.
You like that role play?
You've wanted to do roleplay forever.
I was gonna say something part way through and I'm like no we're doing it.
We're doing it.
We're in the roleplay.
I figured you'd like that because
When I was going through these questions, it's like that's immediately because I'm on YouTube, I get these little shorts or ads that I see these guys in these alpha boot camps.
Yeah.
Awful mail boot camps.
And I just think it's ridiculous.
Anyways.
But that's how I'd respond.
Like it's not like, no, you're wrong.
It's we're actually on the same, we have the same goal here.
It's just there's multiple ways of getting around it.
So hopefully people don't first of all we don't have a son, so this was a fake.
This was a fake conversation.
We don't have a son.
That was not Scott.
Yeah, let's take that out of context and the whole internet's gonna be like, who's this dude?
Yeah, I know exactly Okay.
Well Jess wants me to conclude this episode and I thought it was because she thought my
Conclusions were funny, but she quickly shot that down.
Uh we know he's not funny.
No, right.
That's why you're always laughing.
It's because I'm not funny.
We hope you enjoyed this episode, first of all
Thank you so much for listening.
Hopefully you will continue to listen after I did that most ridiculous um
Role play.
Hopefully no one takes a sound bite of it.
Just of you doing a roleplay and circulates that around the internet.
Yeah, that would be good.
That would be cancelable.
Oh maybe.
Yeah.
If they just took your sound bite and pretended like it was you saying it?
We'll do that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Perfect.
Okay, well thank you for listening.
We'll be back next week with part three of this three part series.
We're finally finishing it, Jess.
Yes, and part three is my favorite part, I think, of all.
Oh.
It is just all extremely practical and I think it just brings the whole series together really well.
So I hope people do come back for the third part and we'll talk next week.
Nice.
Okay, see you then.
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