In this episode of Stress-Free IEP®, Frances Shefter speaks with Dr. Bill Stixrud, Clinical Neuropsychologist, Clinical Director and Founder of The Stixrud Group.
Established in 1985, The Stixrud Group is the Washington metropolitan area’s premier group of neuropsychologists and clinical psychologists who specialize in the evaluation of children, adolescents, and adults with learning, attention, social, and/or emotional difficulties. We are committed to the alleviation of suffering for our clients and their families by removing any blocks to their experiencing happiness and fulfillment in life. We believe this is accomplished by helping our clients understand themselves.
Dr. Stixrud is also author of several books, including The Self Driven Child and What Do You Say?
Tune in to the episode to hear about:
The power of self-control in children
Implementing self-driven initiatives at home
Correlations between anxiety, depression, and self-driven decision making
Frances Shefter is an Education Attorney and Advocate who is committed to helping her clients have a Stress-Free IEP® experience. In each podcast, Frances interviews inspiring people to share information, educate you, empower you and help you get the knowledge you need.
VOICEOVER: (00:00:03): Welcome to Stress-Free IEP®. You do not need to do it all alone with your host, Frances Shefter, Principal of Shafter Law. You can get more details and catch prior episodes at www.shefterlaw.com. The Stress-Free IEP® video podcast is also posted on YouTube and LinkedIn and you can listen to episodes through Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and more. Now, here’s the host of Stress-Free IEP®. Frances Shefter.
Frances Shefter: (00:00:39): Hello, everyone and welcome to our show. I am so excited about our next guest and I know I say that often, but this one is even more because I knew Dr. Stixrud of him before I even knew him just by his reports that I’ve come across over the last years. So I was excited when he agreed to be a guest on my show. Doctor Stixrud is also a well known author, a lot of great books, The Self driven Child. And What Do You Say? So Doctor Stixrud, please introduce yourself a little bit. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:01:15): Well, I’m a clinical neuropsychologist and I’ve been testing kids who have, who are struggling in any way, whether they have learning disabilities or ADHD or anxiety or autism. And I’m just trying to figure out what’s wrong, what’s right and how to help them and, and I didn’t do it for 40 years and never get tired of it. I still love doing it. And my friend Ned Johnson and I wrote the book The Self driven Child. And What Do You Say? in 2018 about why it’s so important for young people to have a sense of control of their own lives. And we wrote a second book. What do you say, talking with kids to build motivation, stress tolerance in a happy home, to give, parents a lot of the language ways to communicate with kids in a less specific language. We found to be effective in communicating with kids in, in our work over the last many years.
Frances Shefter: (00:02:08): So giving your children self control, of course, as a parent, I’m like, whoa, wait a minute, like how much, how much are we talking about here? Like what, what does that mean?
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:02:16): And so we got to a sense of control in part because the last really the last 15 years or so people have been talking about a mental health crisis in young people. Yeah, it turns out that, that all the mental health problems, whether it’s anxiety disorder or depression or septic, they’re all stress related problems. All they have to do with the disregulation, stress response, an overly sensitive and overly reactive stress response that fight or flight response. And we, I learned in 2008 Frances that there’s a neuro as a lecturer and a neuroscientist said you studies stress that I defy you to think of anything that makes life stressful. It doesn’t involve the acronym nuts. The idea of stress makes you nuts. And it’s novelty new situations, unpredictability, perceived threat, whether it’s psychological or physical threat and a low sense of control. And all the stress sciences say is that low sense of control the most, it’s the most stressful thing you can experience. And so we figured if these problems are we have an epidemic and just recently, the attorney general, let me said, the surgeon general said that the status of mental health in adolescence is the defining public health crisis of our lifetime. And it turns out that it’s even worse in 18 to 25 year olds. So we’re figuring if these are all stress related problems and a low sense of control is really at the root of a mental health problems because if you’re anxious, your thinking is out of control. You’d like to stop worrying, but you can’t, if you’re depressed, you have no sense of control. So we thought it’s a huge, it’s hugely related to mental health. And also every place that we look and try to understand how do kids become self motivated. All the arrows point in the direction of autonomy. They have to have a sense that this is my life. So that’s the basic that’s how we got to a sense of control. was through this mental health connection and also the motivation connection. And I used to lecture about like 15 or 20 topics and now I almost always lecture about this topic because I don’t know anything other than letting kids know that they’re deeply loved. I don’t know, there’s any more important.
Frances Shefter: (00:04:36): It’s, you know, I love that. You say that because my nine year old, everybody that’s heard me talk about her is very strong willed, my six year old also, but not quite as strong willed as my nine year old. And she says all the time, it’s my life, you’re mine, you know.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:04:52): Well, you know, I think what the question, one of the questions we deal with. In fact, when we sent the self driven child into our agent, to see if you wanted the book, they want to represent the book. The title was, It’s My Life. And the question, what does it become your kid’s life? You know, and, and, but my sense is, is pretty early on, you know, you got, you can’t from the time that they’re infant, you can’t make them do anything. You can’t make a child do anything and you can’t, you can’t make a failure to thrive an infant eat. You can feed them, you can’t make them eat. And a three year old is refusing something. You can pick them up and, and, and you can do it for, you can make him do it that way. You can’t get him to, you can’t make him do it right. And you make peace with that, you know. Well, ok, they, they really, anyway, you have two kids and they’re very different. They, and we realized they really, they really have a different kind of life path. And I think respecting that from the time that they’re, little is, is really valuable and doable. I was, I was talking about the self driven child before the pandemic and this guy came up to me and said I did my doctoral dissertation on promoting autonomy in two year olds. You want to do it this way or this way? You know, what, what, what would, how should we do this? What, what, what do you want to wear to school? There’s things where we just treat kids respectfully, we treat them. I know that you have a mind of your own. You may not see the way things that you may not like what I like. And we think that having that sense of control it just makes kids much more motivated and again, it just makes them much less stressed.
Frances Shefter: (00:06:27): Which is so, I mean, it’s just all connecting because obviously when I give her choices, I’m like, OK, so you can either brush your teeth or you can skip brushing your teeth. And then that means we need to throw away all the sweets and candy that might rot your teeth. Which do you wanna do? What is the kid gonna do? You know, it’s that she has a choice totally. But which choice do you know? It’s right.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:06:52): Yeah, with little kids, you know, with the, with the younger kids, you want to do it this way or that way, you know, and I think that, , and it’s not the, it’s not the five year old just to be the boss of the family. You know, the kids, kids need structure, they need limits, to feel safe and secure but treating them respectfully and I use the word a second time but like they have a brain in their head, they want their lives to work and they don’t always see things the way we do and also we don’t always know what’s in their best interest because so often what it’s something that seems like a disaster leads to something better. This is something that we didn’t anticipate. And so it turns out that some, some recent research is suggesting that the reason that cognitive behavioral therapy helps kids who have anxiety or depression is because it increases their sense of control. It seems to be the active ingredient. When you think about, you know, CBT kids learn how to talk back and they, they actively talk back to negative thinking, they learn relaxation to regulate their physiology and they learn to go against their fear through exposure therapy and these all things that increase their sense of control. And one of the sense that one of the scientists who Steve Mayer at the University of Colorado, we pay a lot of attention to who studies sense of control for 40 years. Says that having that sense of control, I can I can have some control room, stressful situations, I can manage stressful situations, inoculates kids from the harmful effects of stress. And so it’sin my opinion, it’s a big deal and we’ve been talking about this for six years and people all over the world are reading the self driven child and, and seeing the value of supporting autonomy that,internal sense of control.
Frances Shefter: (00:08:44): it’s so like I just, everything’s connecting with things. There’s a physical therapist that was actually on my show a long time ago. that does the Alexander Technique and in that, it’s teaching the ready list, which is the biggest thing which is the stop look, breathe tall and soft, like a giraffe so that you’re centering yourself. Right.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:9:08): Right. And, and just, I mean, getting good night sleep increases your sense of control. Meditation increases your sense of control. In part because we Ned and I think about a sense of control in two mentions, one is the subjective sense of autonomy and the subjective confidence that I can handle stressful situations. I’m not gonna freak out. And, and secondly, it’s the brain state that supports that, which is when the prefrontal cortex, the most recently evolved part of the brain that can think clearly and go into the past and future. Put things in perspective, calm yourself down when you’re stressed, regulates the rest of the brain, including the Amygdala that permit part of the brain, it just senses and reacts to threat and when it perceives threats, start your stress response and when, when you’re in your right mind or your kids in his right mind and they, they’re focused, you were engaged, we are overly stressed, we weren’t exhausted, we’re, we’re purposeful in what we’re doing. Prefrontal cortex is regulating the rest of the brain and that’s where we want kids to be most of the time. So thinking about it this way, we have two ways to support the kids’ development of that healthy sense of control. One is through promoting autonomy and one is through helping them nurture that brain state by making sure they get enough rest by letting them have exercise, have effective stress management. So they aren’t chronically stressed and anxious.
Frances Shefter: (00:10:32): So my daughter she goes to that physical therapist and the physical therapist has one of those toys that, that start like this and then you can pull it and the ball expands and my, and my daughter goes well, it’s like your brain when you’re, when you’re not thinking clearly and you’re freaking out. It’s like this. When you do the ready list, your brain expands and opens up and is ready for stuff.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:10:55): I know, I mean, and what the way we think about a sense of control in part is what it’s not and what it’s not is feeling helpless or feeling hopeless or feeling overwhelmed or feeling resigned or just stuck or feeling anxious and exhausted. I mean, all those things involve a very low sense of control. I spent the last six years or more actually thinking about talking with people about how do we do this? How do we help kids develop that sense of control? That’s good for everything these people. You got parents in assisted living, they live longer if they simply say you wanna have, you wanna have breakfast at 10:30 or 11, you know, or you have lunch at 10:30 or 11. you know, or, or what time do you want your visit to come? You give them choices? They live longer because the brain works better.
Frances Shefter: (00:11:51): Yeah, that makes sense. It’s so like, I mean, everybody knows, like as parents were here to teach our Children and so forth and, but how does this, like, I mean, I guess obviously giving your child more control and giving them choices is how, but how, like, what is the parent role in this?
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:12:07): So what I’ve been recommending most of my career to parents is that especially as the kids start to, you know, 5-6-7-8-9 and older, you think about themselves more as consultants to the kids than as the kid’s boss or manager or the homework police. And the idea is that this parent is consultant kind of idea with the, I’ll tell you that I gave a lecture in Houston before the pandemic, but I happen to mention the name of arguably the most elite independent school in this area, the DC area. Yeah. And I don’t know why, but I mentioned it and this woman came up to me after the lecture and said, we know the school in DC. really well, she’s like, I’m a psychotherapist here at the manager clinic in in Houston, which is a really good mental health facility in Houston. And she said we know this school in DC really well, because so many of the graduates get into the top colleges in the country. But as soon as they get a B, as soon as they realize that everybody here is as smart as I am or as soon as they get ghosted or a girlfriend dumps them, they can’t handle it emotionally. So they take a medical leave of absence and they come here for treatment. It’s just said 2 to 1, they don’t have that sense of control. They don’t have, they don’t have experience running their own life. And from my point of view, our goal as parents is to help our kids learn to run their own lives so they can run their own lives successfully before they leave home. And so from that in mind, the parent is consultant, idea has three implications. One is we offer our help, we offer our advice, but we don’t try to force it on kids. Number two is we really support kids in making their own decisions in part because the way you become a good decision maker is you practice making decisions and see how they go and learning from your experience. And third is we want kids to solve their own problems because if the kid has a problem, and if we don’t rush in to solve it for them and they rest, they have to wrestle with what happens is they’re trying to solve it whether it’s a, some kind of conflict with another kid or whatever the prefrontal cortex activates. And when the prefrontal cortex activates, it dampens down the stress response. Because you think about in your work, Frances, you have some complicated cases, but when you’re coping with it, it’s actually kind of fun. I mean that if you’re using your skills, it’s when you don’t know what to do when you feel kind of helpless or that’s what’s really stressful. And so what we want is for kids to have that experience of some stress will happen and they solve it because that, that sculpts the brain in, in a way that whenever something stressful happens, they go into coping mode as opposed to, to avoiding or freaking out or being overwhelmed. And so these three things we want to offer help and advice, we want to encourage kids to make their own decisions and want as much as possible, let them solve their own problems with our help is needed.
Frances Shefter: (00:15:01): That makes so much sense. It’s just like I’m thinking about it, like when my daughter comes home and you know, like that she did whatever something happened, somebody did something to her instead of saying, well, did you do this like, well, what did you do?
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:15:12): You know, I did this, I did this exercise with, with a bunch of parents and a parent educator many years ago and we made up these scenarios if you know, kids coming home and a third grade girl is the only kid in her, her friend group who didn’t get invited to a birthday party or, you know, 10th grade boy comes home and he just flunked the test or guy didn’t make the basketball team. And the first thing we ask parents to do is, is ask themselves whose problem is it? You know, and it’s not like your problem buddy. It’s not like that but, respectful because, because we’re wired, we have what’s called a writing reflex, which means that a kid bring us a problem. We’re wired to say, well, you need to do this or let’s, let’s solve it this way. And ideally, you remember, it’s their problem. But we can certainly ask, is there a way that I could help? But I think what you said, you know, what do you think would help? You know, what, what, what do you know how to do that could help you? I mean, that supporting that kind of independent problem solving is really beneficial.
Frances Shefter: (00:16:14): You know, it’s, it’s also like I’m thinking of being, you know, the CEO of my law firm and stuff. When employees come to me with a problem, I get frustrated, I want them to come to me with a solution or two options, you know, like, think it through. And so I’m just thinking if we teach our children at this young age, how much as an employer, an employee, what difference it will make.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:16:37): Yeah. I think it’s, it’s really true and, and I see a lot of kids who, where the parents have just kind of done this, they really try to support that sense of autonomy, that independent problem solving. And again, it’s not, we want to be empathetic with kids when, when they’re struggling, there’s times where we need to, they need our help. They certainly need our advice and our wisdom at times, but we don’t want to lay it on them. We don’t want to tell them a million times that it’s not very effective. And again, if we solve, if we rush to solve their own problems, then we have that opportunity to learn that how, how to, how to respond stress and stress will have stress will happens, activate the be frontal cortex, figure it out yourself and, and then you can go into any, almost any kind of situation and it’s not very stressful because you said, well, I’ve been here before I can handle stuff. That’s what we want. kids have that confidence that they can handle a hard situation because they have.
Frances Shefter: (00:17:44): But how does that work with? So my child, it makes me crazy. My husband and I are the type of if you’re on time, you’re late, you know, 15 minutes early is on time. And, my daughter has the honey, five minutes till we have to leave. Oh, ok. Like no motivation to be on time to be where you need to be or to get things done. Like, how do you get your kids the motivation? Like how do you make them do it basically?
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:18:16): Well, you know, I think that it’s complicated and there are some times where, you know, you got to get out of the house and you just got to grab them, you know, put him in the car. But, but but I think that, that in both our books, we talk about the collaborative problem solving process which, which in the old days, it was called family Family Meetings. And, Ross Green popularized the term collaborative problem solving. And what it is that you, when you’re in a good mood, your kids in good mood. So let’s talk about getting out of the house and, and so we are late and you say I know and you always start with empathy. You always say I know that for you, you get so involved in stuff, that it’s hard for you to remember though. I need, I need to get ready and for me, II I get anxious because it makes me, I don’t, I don’t want to be late. I don’t want you to be late. How can we work this out in a way that that kind of works for both of us. And I think so you, work as approximations of what would, what would help? And you said time, let’s try a timer and see if that helps. You can certainly work out contingency with the kid where this is so stressful for me that I don’t think it’s right, but I don’t think it’s right. And so let, let you make an agreement. And so what should we do? You know if, if you don’t, if, you say, OK, I’ll be ready and then you aren’t ready. What? There should be some kind of consequence for that in the same way. You said that if you don’t brush your teeth, no sweets the next day, I mean that you kind of work that out ahead of time with the kid and most kids are pretty reasonable about working out the consequences. They are not so happy when they’re applied.
Frances Shefter: (00:20:00): I know what my dinner table topic is this evening.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:20:05): You know, I, I just think that that, that having this kind of conversation with kids in a way that again is always starts with empathy and try to understand their point of view. So it’s not judgmental, but it’s just saying that for me, it it creates problems for me and I think that most kids are willing to kind of think through how to do this, what would help, what would work for you.And if you how many times should I, when my kid he was in high school, actually, he, he come home and I never knew what my kids home work was and I never, I, I really knew what their grade were. They’ve got both, they both got phd’s mean that without any academic pressure at all. because foster did this sense of control and but I remember my son has ADHD and, and, and he’d come home and if he mentioned he has a test and I’d see him, you know, dawdling on it, I’d say, do you want me to remind you kind of bug you a little bit and you say, yeah, he probably should. How many times do you want me to remind you tonight? I don’t know. Three I get by him to kind of bug him a little bit and, and to remind him of this test. And it never provoked an argument because I just offer, I’d offered. And, so I think that that having this kind of collaborative problem solving kids are usually pretty good at coming up with ideas. Often times things we didn’t think about and then you move in that direction. It’s often not perfect at first, but you keep talking about it, you keep working it out.
Frances Shefter: (00:21:31): You know, it’s just, I’m thinking about the buses and what I usually say is if we miss the bus, no electronics for the whole weekend, the problem is she gets there just as the bus is pulling up or she rounds the bend just as the bus is pulling up. So she doesn’t miss it. But it’s like that.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:21:49): Well, then it’s your problem. You know, there’s a, I think it was, there’s a, what was it called? The, the Something Trap. I can’t remember what I think a Tom Hanks movie Shelley Long is, is an orchestra and she comes, and she says like two minutes practice starts at 12. She got two minutes before 12 and this European director says you were almost late and she said in America we call that on time, you know. So, yeah, and I just Ihave friends and colleagues who do things at the last minute and, I’m, I’m less comfortable with that but they, they get them done and if, if that makes me anxious, that’s kind of, that’s kind of on me. Unless they, they’re really, unless they really are late. So, I might ask her, I mean, I might suggest he asked her, does it make, do you get anxious worried that you’re gonna be late and you would it be, would it make any sense for you to try to get there three minutes early instead of one minute early so that you don’t have to worry. You guys share your wisdom.
Frances Shefter: (00:22:59): And then it just makes sense because I’ve turned it into my problem because now, you know, as we all know, electronics have their place and everything, but when you take away electronics, you’re punishing yourself as well as we all know. And it just makes it worse where it is. Like, I love the idea of giving her that opportunity. Like I’m stressed in the mornings when you’re late and I don’t want to have to yell at you and remind you what can we do to change that?
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:23:28): And she may want you to remind her, you know, but I think that it feels different if you’ve offered, if, that’s part of the plan, if you, remind her 15 minutes to 10 minutes or for her to set a timer, and just kind of work out a plan and then see how it goes and if it’s not perfect, you meet again. And so what do we need to do here? And I think that but you don’t want, in my experience. Yeah. Arguing about the same thing over and over again is always toxic for a relationship. And so, with kids have ADHD or they’re otherwise they just aren’t really oriented the time very well. I stressful for somebody who is busy lives. We live. It’s hard, it’s hard for us. , but as long as she’s getting there on time, I just like to reduce the wear and tear on both of you by, I got to clarify. How should we do this? What’s the best way of getting hurt by him? And if you’re late, you know, despite the problem, what should be, should there be a consequence and kind of working out the consequences ahead of time? Yeah. So like that. How far is school from your house?
Frances Shefter: (00:24:45): Oh, the school bus is at the end of the cul de sac,
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:24:48): Ok. How far is the school?
Frances Shefter: (00:24:52): The school is a mile but it’s not safe to have her walk because there’s no sidewalks. Oh, I thought that.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:24:58): Yeah.
Frances Shefter: (00:25:00): Although we could drive to her uncle’s house who lives three blocks from the school.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:25:10): Yeah. So, there’s always gonna be stuff, I mean, most family, there’s, there’s always stuff like this that we did stuff to work out. Yeah. And I think that that rather than, the, 1 of the great, one of the great classic books for, for parents is “Positive Discipline” by Jane Nelson. And she talks about the consequences that the 4 “R”sof consequences it should be. It should be relatable, meaning there some kind of relationship to the infraction they should be agreed on. I can’t remember the Rs. Exactly. They should be agreed on ahead of time. There’s a couple of them. But, yeah, so I think when, when kids know, that, that if I don’t do, there will be some consequence that I’ve agreed on that there will be consequences.
Frances Shefter: (00:26:02): I’m going through my head because I’ve heard that before and I know it was Relatable. Realistic was the other one. Like, you know, something else and it was something like.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:26:15): Revealed.
Frances Shefter: (00:26:17): There we go. We, we figured it out. And it just, yeah, it makes sense because it just, it connects, I mean, we get in these power struggles with our kids and I know we all do it and we’re not gonna win ever.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:26:33): In our second book and What Do You Say? We have a chapter called the, the Language of the parent consultant and, and two of the aspects of language that we talk about. And number one is the language of getting by it so that, you know, it’s not my, my co author, Dan has this cartoon where the dad is holding his, his two sons by the nape of the neck and saying by the back of their shirts and saying, listen up boys and listen up good because I’m only gonna tell you this a million times, you know. And parents say to me all the time, you know, I told him a million times or I keep trying to get him to see and save your breath. Well, so we always suggest to say I’ve got an idea about that. Can I run it by you? That I’m wondering what would happen if you tried it this way? But what I say to kids a lot is, for whatever it’s worth and then I’ll run something by them, but I wanted it to feel. I don’t want to feel like I’m laying something on them. They’re, they’re just gonna reject. So it’s getting by in. , and the second is what we call the language of no force, which is obviously I couldn’t make you do this. You all, you, all you have to do is flop on the floor. You know, I, I couldn’t make you do it. And yet if you fight me on it, if it’s really unpleasant that I may not feel like the way relationships work, I’m might feel like, like doing something extra for you tomorrow or the next day or something. And I think that letting kids, I, I feel it’s Francis I’m often asked to talk kids into things because I’m a psychcologist. Maybe they’ll listen to you. You’re a psychologist and I don’t believe in talking kids to anything into things. But I believe II, I talk with them about it and very frequently, I tell parents, tell the first thing, say them, obviously I couldn’t make you do it and then you, you, you say, , but it, maybe it makes sense for you to try it this way. Just see what, what happens. And there’s 1 of my there’s a mother who came to me and said, an observant Jewish family where a 13 year old son was refusing to do his Bar Mitzvah. He didn’t believe in God and he thought he didn’t want to be a hypocrite. And what I advised the mom to say is obviously, we couldn’t make you do this. You know, all we couldn’t make you learn your Torah portion. We couldn’t, we couldn’t drag on the beam and then move your lips. We obviously, we so no, you don’t have to do it. We couldn’t make you do it at the same time. It’s really important to us that you do it. It’s important to your grandparents and your aunts, uncles and your cousins and your friends who want to welcome to the Jewish community. And I really respect your integrity but not wanting to be a hypocrite about this. But you don’t have to believe it to do this and, and be part of the community. And two days later, after refusing for nine months, you said, OK, I’ll do it. And then he negotiated, you know, he said, well, I don’t want to do it in front of the whole synagogue. I do it on a Monday or something. But, but he did it and I just find like it, it’s almost, it’s, it’s like a superpower of taking force off the table because kids want their life to work. They don’t want to fight with this constantly and we, and it takes two to fight and if we stop fighting, then then we’re much better able to influence.
Frances Shefter: (00:29:44): Yeah, that makes so much sense. I feel like all the stress coming off my shoulders, I can’t wait to start implementing and it.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:29:52): It works.
Frances Shefter: (00:29:54): It does. Yeah. The few times I’ve done it, I know it works and when you, and when you think it through, it really makes sense of why, why it would work and why, what we’re doing, you know, it’s what our parents did, how did it make us feel when our parents did it to us? You know, that how we want our kids to feel?
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:30:12): You know, and say to the, when I first wrote about this, this idea of parent consultant, it was 1986. I had an article in McCall’s magazine about how not to fight with, with kids about your homework. But I suggest that you say to kids, I love you too much to fight with you about your homework. I’m willing to help you in any way I can. I’m willing to be your homework consultant to help you figure out how to get it done or like that. But you’re the most precious thing in the universe, man. I’m not willing to, to, to, to have all the stress between us over something like your homework and, and I think really, I love you too much to fight with you about almost anything because there’s more effective ways of influencing kids than fighting with them.
Frances Shefter: (00:30:55): Yeah. I mean, that’s true with all relationships if you think about it.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:30:58): It is, isn’t it?
Frances Shefter: (00:31:00): Right? Like fighting with my husband, fighting with my siblings, fighting with friends, you know, like everything, none of us feel good when we’re fighting.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:31:08): I know. I know, especially if it’s the same fight over and over and over again. Yeah. You know, it, you know, I think that most marriages, you have disagreements about stuff and you may tempers may flare briefly but, but it’s toxic but it’s the same thing over and over again.
Frances Shefter: (00:31:26): No, it makes sense that every morning we’re doing that same argument every single morning and I’m stressed, she’s stressed. It’s not good for any of us. Yeah, it makes sense. It’s funny. I’m thinking my friends that might be watching the show were like, oh, yeah, you’re gonna give up control. I am. You know.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:31:43): Well, and the thing is that it’s not again that we said we’re, we’re like the guides in our family. We set limits but our authority, we, we lose our natural authority when we get down the same level as a kid. We start on a kids’ level, arguing back and forth. If we lose our, we have natural authority in our families because we’re older, we have more experience, we have the money, you know, we’ve always kind of, we can drive kids or not, you know, we have all kinds of ways of influence, but we lose our natural authority when we, when we got to lower ourselves basically and just argue with kids or fight with them. Because there’s more, there’s more skillful ways to do it that, that, that don’t rupture a relationship and don’t make us feel powerless.
Frances Shefter: (00:32:28): And actually the more I think about it, the more I’m thinking I have more control when I do the choice because if we’re fighting, I have no control, I can’t force it. We’re just gonna keep fighting,
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:32:43): I realized I can’t, I think I did my internship in psychology at the Children’s Hospital in Boston. And I remember somebody Barry Brasilton was a pediatrician there. He was the most famous pediatrician in the world at the time. And I hear about these, these failure to thrive infants. And his war and I think Barry Brazil, you can be Hulk Hogan or you can be Barry Brasil. You can’t make an infant eat. You can’t, you know, like that, they can’t make them do it once I realize you really can’t make kids do stuff. You know, if kids don’t want to get into the car to go to grandma’s and they’re four years old, you pick them up and put in the car, but they aren’t getting in the car. You can’t make them once I realized that. I felt like it was so liberating because the idea is if you can’t make a kid do something, it couldn’t be your responsibility to see that they turn out a certain way. And our job, in my opinion is to figure out, help them figure out who they want to be, what kind of life they want and how to create the life that they want. Yeah, I think so. It’s not that, that I think we have a stronger sense of control when we give up doing things that make us feel helpless.
Frances Shefter: (00:33:58): It’s letting go of what we think is the perfect life for our children. You know, because obviously, you know, I have a master’s degree and my, you know, my JD and stuff and education is extremely important in my house. But if my kids decide to not go to college, I need to be ok with that.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:34:18): And I talked to a mother a couple of weeks just a couple of weeks ago who said I really, I’m so grateful for, for you. You’re encouraging me to, to let my kid figure out who you wanted to be because he, didn’t, he didn’t go to the path I had envisioned for him. He didn’t want to go to college. But he, he’s in his mid thirties now. He’s, he’s really happy with his life as a rock and roll musician. He does all that. He works for a lot of these nonprofits for these projects and he makes enough money. He’s got really good friends. He’s got a really nice girlfriend. He’s as happy as any kid. I know in a young adult. I know. And, if I would have fought with him all those years trying to make him into who I thought he should be yeah, I’d be miserable. And, and I just, some, somebody said to me many, many years ago, I don’t even remember who it was. He said the thing I loved about raising my kids when they’re adolescents was every day when they come home from school, you get to see who they’re deciding to be. And I just, you know, for me, I just I love, I love the idea that it really is their life and they like to kind of figure out and I was struck when I used to do psychotherapy, how many people are? I’d see a 40 year old, how many 40 year olds I saw and they, I’d say, how can I help? And they’d say, I feel like I spent the first 40 years of my life trying to live up to their people expectations. Now I’m trying to figure out what’s important to me.
Frances Shefter: (00:35:46): Yeah. Which makes sense. I used to, you know, I’ve said often, like, why are older people so grumpy? And I’m like, because they can be right, like, you don’t have to answer to anybody. Right. It’s finally when you hit that age of retirement and, you know, you can be as grumpy as you want because who cares what are you going to do?
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:36:10): Right. That’s true.
Frances Shefter: (00:36:13): So, it got me thinking what you’re just saying about transitions and transition plans and that’s where, , I know in IEPs often, that area is neglected in IEP so much in the school system.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:36:29): I don’t even read this part of the, that part of the IEP. Yeah. Oh, I’ll see kids who, you know, have severe language disorders and their academic skills the first percentile and, and the transition. Well, the plan is to go to college. Well, you know, if, you academic schools, college is hard and, and I think that our kids have no, they’re gonna be musicians and they have no backup plan and the school doesn’t really help them and inform them here’s what you’re really good at you know, that kind of thing. So, yeah, I don’t pay much attention.
Frances Shefter: (00:37:08): Getting hired by the parents. They want me to make sure that he is right and right, and get, you know, get the transition plan. But whether it’s, that’s actually done or not is a whole other thing.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:37:21): I do see kids who, who with special needs, who have very, fairly thoughtful where, where, where the transition people really need to help think. But I also see a lot of kids where they aren’t worth reading.
Frances Shefter: (00:37:35): Right. No. Oh, no. Usually they’re not worth reading and I rewrite them.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:37:41): Yeah.
Frances Shefter: (00:37:42): That experience of my teaching experience. I rewrite IEPs all the time. It’s just like, why did I let them draft it if I had just drafted this in the first place? , because I can take an evaluation and I know how to put it into an IEP the right way. And that’s not knocking on teachers at all because teachers aren’t taught how to write. IEPs. Nowhere in any of my schooling was I taught how to write an IEP.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:38:08): Yeah. Bless your heart. Yeah.
Frances Shefter: (00:38:11): It’s hard but there are classes out there of how to write at IEP and stuff and it’s, you know, go and do it. Not saying the teachers, you know, they have enough on their plates. But, yeah. Yeah, it makes life easier.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:38:22): Well, yeah, if you, you’re gonna do it, it’s good to know how to do it.
Frances Shefter: (00:38:27): Right. Exactly. And, I mean, I’m just thinking about my teachers days. I much more prefer walking into an IEP meeting in which we’re all in the same page. Yeah, it’s good. We just want to talk through this issue or that issue, but for the most part we’re on the same page. Boom. And IEP meetings done in a half an hour. Whereas when it’s not well written and the parents either themselves or hire an advocate or an attorney comes in, it’s like we have to rewrite it and we have to fight about it. We have to talk about it and just double the work. So, yeah, that makes sense. This has been so amazing. It’s so funny because I have, I do these shows and I have people on and I always, you know, as a parent of two kids, I always learn stuff and take it home and, you know, like I did another show, we got to do this and I learned so much. So, thank you so much for being on the show. And sharing all of your wisdom with us.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:39:22): My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
VOICEOVER: (00:39:25): You’ve been listening to Stress-Free IEP® with your host, Frances Shefter. Remember you do not need to do it all alone. You can reach Frances through www.Shefterlaw.com where prior episodes are also posted. Thank you for your positive reviews, comments and sharing the show with others through YouTube LinkedIn Apple podcast, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and more.
The Power and Importance Behind Self-Control in Children with Dr. Bill Stixrud
Stress-Free IEP® with Frances Shefter, Episode 40
In this episode of Stress-Free IEP®, Frances Shefter speaks with Dr. Bill Stixrud, Clinical Neuropsychologist, Clinical Director and Founder of The Stixrud Group.
Established in 1985, The Stixrud Group is the Washington metropolitan area’s premier group of neuropsychologists and clinical psychologists who specialize in the evaluation of children, adolescents, and adults with learning, attention, social, and/or emotional difficulties. We are committed to the alleviation of suffering for our clients and their families by removing any blocks to their experiencing happiness and fulfillment in life. We believe this is accomplished by helping our clients understand themselves.
Dr. Stixrud is also author of several books, including The Self Driven Child and What Do You Say?
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Learn more about Dr. Stixrud:
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Stress-Free IEP®:
Frances Shefter is an Education Attorney and Advocate who is committed to helping her clients have a Stress-Free IEP® experience. In each podcast, Frances interviews inspiring people to share information, educate you, empower you and help you get the knowledge you need.
Watch more episodes of Stress-Free IEP®:
Connect and learn more from your host, Frances Shefter:
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
VOICEOVER: (00:00:03): Welcome to Stress-Free IEP®. You do not need to do it all alone with your host, Frances Shefter, Principal of Shafter Law. You can get more details and catch prior episodes at www.shefterlaw.com. The Stress-Free IEP® video podcast is also posted on YouTube and LinkedIn and you can listen to episodes through Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and more. Now, here’s the host of Stress-Free IEP®. Frances Shefter.
Frances Shefter: (00:00:39): Hello, everyone and welcome to our show. I am so excited about our next guest and I know I say that often, but this one is even more because I knew Dr. Stixrud of him before I even knew him just by his reports that I’ve come across over the last years. So I was excited when he agreed to be a guest on my show. Doctor Stixrud is also a well known author, a lot of great books, The Self driven Child. And What Do You Say? So Doctor Stixrud, please introduce yourself a little bit. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:01:15): Well, I’m a clinical neuropsychologist and I’ve been testing kids who have, who are struggling in any way, whether they have learning disabilities or ADHD or anxiety or autism. And I’m just trying to figure out what’s wrong, what’s right and how to help them and, and I didn’t do it for 40 years and never get tired of it. I still love doing it. And my friend Ned Johnson and I wrote the book The Self driven Child. And What Do You Say? in 2018 about why it’s so important for young people to have a sense of control of their own lives. And we wrote a second book. What do you say, talking with kids to build motivation, stress tolerance in a happy home, to give, parents a lot of the language ways to communicate with kids in a less specific language. We found to be effective in communicating with kids in, in our work over the last many years.
Frances Shefter: (00:02:08): So giving your children self control, of course, as a parent, I’m like, whoa, wait a minute, like how much, how much are we talking about here? Like what, what does that mean?
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:02:16): And so we got to a sense of control in part because the last really the last 15 years or so people have been talking about a mental health crisis in young people. Yeah, it turns out that, that all the mental health problems, whether it’s anxiety disorder or depression or septic, they’re all stress related problems. All they have to do with the disregulation, stress response, an overly sensitive and overly reactive stress response that fight or flight response. And we, I learned in 2008 Frances that there’s a neuro as a lecturer and a neuroscientist said you studies stress that I defy you to think of anything that makes life stressful. It doesn’t involve the acronym nuts. The idea of stress makes you nuts. And it’s novelty new situations, unpredictability, perceived threat, whether it’s psychological or physical threat and a low sense of control. And all the stress sciences say is that low sense of control the most, it’s the most stressful thing you can experience. And so we figured if these problems are we have an epidemic and just recently, the attorney general, let me said, the surgeon general said that the status of mental health in adolescence is the defining public health crisis of our lifetime. And it turns out that it’s even worse in 18 to 25 year olds. So we’re figuring if these are all stress related problems and a low sense of control is really at the root of a mental health problems because if you’re anxious, your thinking is out of control. You’d like to stop worrying, but you can’t, if you’re depressed, you have no sense of control. So we thought it’s a huge, it’s hugely related to mental health. And also every place that we look and try to understand how do kids become self motivated. All the arrows point in the direction of autonomy. They have to have a sense that this is my life. So that’s the basic that’s how we got to a sense of control. was through this mental health connection and also the motivation connection. And I used to lecture about like 15 or 20 topics and now I almost always lecture about this topic because I don’t know anything other than letting kids know that they’re deeply loved. I don’t know, there’s any more important.
Frances Shefter: (00:04:36): It’s, you know, I love that. You say that because my nine year old, everybody that’s heard me talk about her is very strong willed, my six year old also, but not quite as strong willed as my nine year old. And she says all the time, it’s my life, you’re mine, you know.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:04:52): Well, you know, I think what the question, one of the questions we deal with. In fact, when we sent the self driven child into our agent, to see if you wanted the book, they want to represent the book. The title was, It’s My Life. And the question, what does it become your kid’s life? You know, and, and, but my sense is, is pretty early on, you know, you got, you can’t from the time that they’re infant, you can’t make them do anything. You can’t make a child do anything and you can’t, you can’t make a failure to thrive an infant eat. You can feed them, you can’t make them eat. And a three year old is refusing something. You can pick them up and, and, and you can do it for, you can make him do it that way. You can’t get him to, you can’t make him do it right. And you make peace with that, you know. Well, ok, they, they really, anyway, you have two kids and they’re very different. They, and we realized they really, they really have a different kind of life path. And I think respecting that from the time that they’re, little is, is really valuable and doable. I was, I was talking about the self driven child before the pandemic and this guy came up to me and said I did my doctoral dissertation on promoting autonomy in two year olds. You want to do it this way or this way? You know, what, what, what would, how should we do this? What, what, what do you want to wear to school? There’s things where we just treat kids respectfully, we treat them. I know that you have a mind of your own. You may not see the way things that you may not like what I like. And we think that having that sense of control it just makes kids much more motivated and again, it just makes them much less stressed.
Frances Shefter: (00:06:27): Which is so, I mean, it’s just all connecting because obviously when I give her choices, I’m like, OK, so you can either brush your teeth or you can skip brushing your teeth. And then that means we need to throw away all the sweets and candy that might rot your teeth. Which do you wanna do? What is the kid gonna do? You know, it’s that she has a choice totally. But which choice do you know? It’s right.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:06:52): Yeah, with little kids, you know, with the, with the younger kids, you want to do it this way or that way, you know, and I think that, , and it’s not the, it’s not the five year old just to be the boss of the family. You know, the kids, kids need structure, they need limits, to feel safe and secure but treating them respectfully and I use the word a second time but like they have a brain in their head, they want their lives to work and they don’t always see things the way we do and also we don’t always know what’s in their best interest because so often what it’s something that seems like a disaster leads to something better. This is something that we didn’t anticipate. And so it turns out that some, some recent research is suggesting that the reason that cognitive behavioral therapy helps kids who have anxiety or depression is because it increases their sense of control. It seems to be the active ingredient. When you think about, you know, CBT kids learn how to talk back and they, they actively talk back to negative thinking, they learn relaxation to regulate their physiology and they learn to go against their fear through exposure therapy and these all things that increase their sense of control. And one of the sense that one of the scientists who Steve Mayer at the University of Colorado, we pay a lot of attention to who studies sense of control for 40 years. Says that having that sense of control, I can I can have some control room, stressful situations, I can manage stressful situations, inoculates kids from the harmful effects of stress. And so it’sin my opinion, it’s a big deal and we’ve been talking about this for six years and people all over the world are reading the self driven child and, and seeing the value of supporting autonomy that,internal sense of control.
Frances Shefter: (00:08:44): it’s so like I just, everything’s connecting with things. There’s a physical therapist that was actually on my show a long time ago. that does the Alexander Technique and in that, it’s teaching the ready list, which is the biggest thing which is the stop look, breathe tall and soft, like a giraffe so that you’re centering yourself. Right.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:9:08): Right. And, and just, I mean, getting good night sleep increases your sense of control. Meditation increases your sense of control. In part because we Ned and I think about a sense of control in two mentions, one is the subjective sense of autonomy and the subjective confidence that I can handle stressful situations. I’m not gonna freak out. And, and secondly, it’s the brain state that supports that, which is when the prefrontal cortex, the most recently evolved part of the brain that can think clearly and go into the past and future. Put things in perspective, calm yourself down when you’re stressed, regulates the rest of the brain, including the Amygdala that permit part of the brain, it just senses and reacts to threat and when it perceives threats, start your stress response and when, when you’re in your right mind or your kids in his right mind and they, they’re focused, you were engaged, we are overly stressed, we weren’t exhausted, we’re, we’re purposeful in what we’re doing. Prefrontal cortex is regulating the rest of the brain and that’s where we want kids to be most of the time. So thinking about it this way, we have two ways to support the kids’ development of that healthy sense of control. One is through promoting autonomy and one is through helping them nurture that brain state by making sure they get enough rest by letting them have exercise, have effective stress management. So they aren’t chronically stressed and anxious.
Frances Shefter: (00:10:32): So my daughter she goes to that physical therapist and the physical therapist has one of those toys that, that start like this and then you can pull it and the ball expands and my, and my daughter goes well, it’s like your brain when you’re, when you’re not thinking clearly and you’re freaking out. It’s like this. When you do the ready list, your brain expands and opens up and is ready for stuff.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:10:55): I know, I mean, and what the way we think about a sense of control in part is what it’s not and what it’s not is feeling helpless or feeling hopeless or feeling overwhelmed or feeling resigned or just stuck or feeling anxious and exhausted. I mean, all those things involve a very low sense of control. I spent the last six years or more actually thinking about talking with people about how do we do this? How do we help kids develop that sense of control? That’s good for everything these people. You got parents in assisted living, they live longer if they simply say you wanna have, you wanna have breakfast at 10:30 or 11, you know, or you have lunch at 10:30 or 11. you know, or, or what time do you want your visit to come? You give them choices? They live longer because the brain works better.
Frances Shefter: (00:11:51): Yeah, that makes sense. It’s so like, I mean, everybody knows, like as parents were here to teach our Children and so forth and, but how does this, like, I mean, I guess obviously giving your child more control and giving them choices is how, but how, like, what is the parent role in this?
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:12:07): So what I’ve been recommending most of my career to parents is that especially as the kids start to, you know, 5-6-7-8-9 and older, you think about themselves more as consultants to the kids than as the kid’s boss or manager or the homework police. And the idea is that this parent is consultant kind of idea with the, I’ll tell you that I gave a lecture in Houston before the pandemic, but I happen to mention the name of arguably the most elite independent school in this area, the DC area. Yeah. And I don’t know why, but I mentioned it and this woman came up to me after the lecture and said, we know the school in DC. really well, she’s like, I’m a psychotherapist here at the manager clinic in in Houston, which is a really good mental health facility in Houston. And she said we know this school in DC really well, because so many of the graduates get into the top colleges in the country. But as soon as they get a B, as soon as they realize that everybody here is as smart as I am or as soon as they get ghosted or a girlfriend dumps them, they can’t handle it emotionally. So they take a medical leave of absence and they come here for treatment. It’s just said 2 to 1, they don’t have that sense of control. They don’t have, they don’t have experience running their own life. And from my point of view, our goal as parents is to help our kids learn to run their own lives so they can run their own lives successfully before they leave home. And so from that in mind, the parent is consultant, idea has three implications. One is we offer our help, we offer our advice, but we don’t try to force it on kids. Number two is we really support kids in making their own decisions in part because the way you become a good decision maker is you practice making decisions and see how they go and learning from your experience. And third is we want kids to solve their own problems because if the kid has a problem, and if we don’t rush in to solve it for them and they rest, they have to wrestle with what happens is they’re trying to solve it whether it’s a, some kind of conflict with another kid or whatever the prefrontal cortex activates. And when the prefrontal cortex activates, it dampens down the stress response. Because you think about in your work, Frances, you have some complicated cases, but when you’re coping with it, it’s actually kind of fun. I mean that if you’re using your skills, it’s when you don’t know what to do when you feel kind of helpless or that’s what’s really stressful. And so what we want is for kids to have that experience of some stress will happen and they solve it because that, that sculpts the brain in, in a way that whenever something stressful happens, they go into coping mode as opposed to, to avoiding or freaking out or being overwhelmed. And so these three things we want to offer help and advice, we want to encourage kids to make their own decisions and want as much as possible, let them solve their own problems with our help is needed.
Frances Shefter: (00:15:01): That makes so much sense. It’s just like I’m thinking about it, like when my daughter comes home and you know, like that she did whatever something happened, somebody did something to her instead of saying, well, did you do this like, well, what did you do?
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:15:12): You know, I did this, I did this exercise with, with a bunch of parents and a parent educator many years ago and we made up these scenarios if you know, kids coming home and a third grade girl is the only kid in her, her friend group who didn’t get invited to a birthday party or, you know, 10th grade boy comes home and he just flunked the test or guy didn’t make the basketball team. And the first thing we ask parents to do is, is ask themselves whose problem is it? You know, and it’s not like your problem buddy. It’s not like that but, respectful because, because we’re wired, we have what’s called a writing reflex, which means that a kid bring us a problem. We’re wired to say, well, you need to do this or let’s, let’s solve it this way. And ideally, you remember, it’s their problem. But we can certainly ask, is there a way that I could help? But I think what you said, you know, what do you think would help? You know, what, what, what do you know how to do that could help you? I mean, that supporting that kind of independent problem solving is really beneficial.
Frances Shefter: (00:16:14): You know, it’s, it’s also like I’m thinking of being, you know, the CEO of my law firm and stuff. When employees come to me with a problem, I get frustrated, I want them to come to me with a solution or two options, you know, like, think it through. And so I’m just thinking if we teach our children at this young age, how much as an employer, an employee, what difference it will make.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:16:37): Yeah. I think it’s, it’s really true and, and I see a lot of kids who, where the parents have just kind of done this, they really try to support that sense of autonomy, that independent problem solving. And again, it’s not, we want to be empathetic with kids when, when they’re struggling, there’s times where we need to, they need our help. They certainly need our advice and our wisdom at times, but we don’t want to lay it on them. We don’t want to tell them a million times that it’s not very effective. And again, if we solve, if we rush to solve their own problems, then we have that opportunity to learn that how, how to, how to respond stress and stress will have stress will happens, activate the be frontal cortex, figure it out yourself and, and then you can go into any, almost any kind of situation and it’s not very stressful because you said, well, I’ve been here before I can handle stuff. That’s what we want. kids have that confidence that they can handle a hard situation because they have.
Frances Shefter: (00:17:44): But how does that work with? So my child, it makes me crazy. My husband and I are the type of if you’re on time, you’re late, you know, 15 minutes early is on time. And, my daughter has the honey, five minutes till we have to leave. Oh, ok. Like no motivation to be on time to be where you need to be or to get things done. Like, how do you get your kids the motivation? Like how do you make them do it basically?
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:18:16): Well, you know, I think that it’s complicated and there are some times where, you know, you got to get out of the house and you just got to grab them, you know, put him in the car. But, but but I think that, that in both our books, we talk about the collaborative problem solving process which, which in the old days, it was called family Family Meetings. And, Ross Green popularized the term collaborative problem solving. And what it is that you, when you’re in a good mood, your kids in good mood. So let’s talk about getting out of the house and, and so we are late and you say I know and you always start with empathy. You always say I know that for you, you get so involved in stuff, that it’s hard for you to remember though. I need, I need to get ready and for me, II I get anxious because it makes me, I don’t, I don’t want to be late. I don’t want you to be late. How can we work this out in a way that that kind of works for both of us. And I think so you, work as approximations of what would, what would help? And you said time, let’s try a timer and see if that helps. You can certainly work out contingency with the kid where this is so stressful for me that I don’t think it’s right, but I don’t think it’s right. And so let, let you make an agreement. And so what should we do? You know if, if you don’t, if, you say, OK, I’ll be ready and then you aren’t ready. What? There should be some kind of consequence for that in the same way. You said that if you don’t brush your teeth, no sweets the next day, I mean that you kind of work that out ahead of time with the kid and most kids are pretty reasonable about working out the consequences. They are not so happy when they’re applied.
Frances Shefter: (00:20:00): I know what my dinner table topic is this evening.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:20:05): You know, I, I just think that that, that having this kind of conversation with kids in a way that again is always starts with empathy and try to understand their point of view. So it’s not judgmental, but it’s just saying that for me, it it creates problems for me and I think that most kids are willing to kind of think through how to do this, what would help, what would work for you.And if you how many times should I, when my kid he was in high school, actually, he, he come home and I never knew what my kids home work was and I never, I, I really knew what their grade were. They’ve got both, they both got phd’s mean that without any academic pressure at all. because foster did this sense of control and but I remember my son has ADHD and, and, and he’d come home and if he mentioned he has a test and I’d see him, you know, dawdling on it, I’d say, do you want me to remind you kind of bug you a little bit and you say, yeah, he probably should. How many times do you want me to remind you tonight? I don’t know. Three I get by him to kind of bug him a little bit and, and to remind him of this test. And it never provoked an argument because I just offer, I’d offered. And, so I think that that having this kind of collaborative problem solving kids are usually pretty good at coming up with ideas. Often times things we didn’t think about and then you move in that direction. It’s often not perfect at first, but you keep talking about it, you keep working it out.
Frances Shefter: (00:21:31): You know, it’s just, I’m thinking about the buses and what I usually say is if we miss the bus, no electronics for the whole weekend, the problem is she gets there just as the bus is pulling up or she rounds the bend just as the bus is pulling up. So she doesn’t miss it. But it’s like that.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:21:49): Well, then it’s your problem. You know, there’s a, I think it was, there’s a, what was it called? The, the Something Trap. I can’t remember what I think a Tom Hanks movie Shelley Long is, is an orchestra and she comes, and she says like two minutes practice starts at 12. She got two minutes before 12 and this European director says you were almost late and she said in America we call that on time, you know. So, yeah, and I just Ihave friends and colleagues who do things at the last minute and, I’m, I’m less comfortable with that but they, they get them done and if, if that makes me anxious, that’s kind of, that’s kind of on me. Unless they, they’re really, unless they really are late. So, I might ask her, I mean, I might suggest he asked her, does it make, do you get anxious worried that you’re gonna be late and you would it be, would it make any sense for you to try to get there three minutes early instead of one minute early so that you don’t have to worry. You guys share your wisdom.
Frances Shefter: (00:22:59): And then it just makes sense because I’ve turned it into my problem because now, you know, as we all know, electronics have their place and everything, but when you take away electronics, you’re punishing yourself as well as we all know. And it just makes it worse where it is. Like, I love the idea of giving her that opportunity. Like I’m stressed in the mornings when you’re late and I don’t want to have to yell at you and remind you what can we do to change that?
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:23:28): And she may want you to remind her, you know, but I think that it feels different if you’ve offered, if, that’s part of the plan, if you, remind her 15 minutes to 10 minutes or for her to set a timer, and just kind of work out a plan and then see how it goes and if it’s not perfect, you meet again. And so what do we need to do here? And I think that but you don’t want, in my experience. Yeah. Arguing about the same thing over and over again is always toxic for a relationship. And so, with kids have ADHD or they’re otherwise they just aren’t really oriented the time very well. I stressful for somebody who is busy lives. We live. It’s hard, it’s hard for us. , but as long as she’s getting there on time, I just like to reduce the wear and tear on both of you by, I got to clarify. How should we do this? What’s the best way of getting hurt by him? And if you’re late, you know, despite the problem, what should be, should there be a consequence and kind of working out the consequences ahead of time? Yeah. So like that. How far is school from your house?
Frances Shefter: (00:24:45): Oh, the school bus is at the end of the cul de sac,
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:24:48): Ok. How far is the school?
Frances Shefter: (00:24:52): The school is a mile but it’s not safe to have her walk because there’s no sidewalks. Oh, I thought that.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:24:58): Yeah.
Frances Shefter: (00:25:00): Although we could drive to her uncle’s house who lives three blocks from the school.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:25:10): Yeah. So, there’s always gonna be stuff, I mean, most family, there’s, there’s always stuff like this that we did stuff to work out. Yeah. And I think that that rather than, the, 1 of the great, one of the great classic books for, for parents is “Positive Discipline” by Jane Nelson. And she talks about the consequences that the 4 “R”sof consequences it should be. It should be relatable, meaning there some kind of relationship to the infraction they should be agreed on. I can’t remember the Rs. Exactly. They should be agreed on ahead of time. There’s a couple of them. But, yeah, so I think when, when kids know, that, that if I don’t do, there will be some consequence that I’ve agreed on that there will be consequences.
Frances Shefter: (00:26:02): I’m going through my head because I’ve heard that before and I know it was Relatable. Realistic was the other one. Like, you know, something else and it was something like.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:26:15): Revealed.
Frances Shefter: (00:26:17): There we go. We, we figured it out. And it just, yeah, it makes sense because it just, it connects, I mean, we get in these power struggles with our kids and I know we all do it and we’re not gonna win ever.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:26:33): In our second book and What Do You Say? We have a chapter called the, the Language of the parent consultant and, and two of the aspects of language that we talk about. And number one is the language of getting by it so that, you know, it’s not my, my co author, Dan has this cartoon where the dad is holding his, his two sons by the nape of the neck and saying by the back of their shirts and saying, listen up boys and listen up good because I’m only gonna tell you this a million times, you know. And parents say to me all the time, you know, I told him a million times or I keep trying to get him to see and save your breath. Well, so we always suggest to say I’ve got an idea about that. Can I run it by you? That I’m wondering what would happen if you tried it this way? But what I say to kids a lot is, for whatever it’s worth and then I’ll run something by them, but I wanted it to feel. I don’t want to feel like I’m laying something on them. They’re, they’re just gonna reject. So it’s getting by in. , and the second is what we call the language of no force, which is obviously I couldn’t make you do this. You all, you, all you have to do is flop on the floor. You know, I, I couldn’t make you do it. And yet if you fight me on it, if it’s really unpleasant that I may not feel like the way relationships work, I’m might feel like, like doing something extra for you tomorrow or the next day or something. And I think that letting kids, I, I feel it’s Francis I’m often asked to talk kids into things because I’m a psychcologist. Maybe they’ll listen to you. You’re a psychologist and I don’t believe in talking kids to anything into things. But I believe II, I talk with them about it and very frequently, I tell parents, tell the first thing, say them, obviously I couldn’t make you do it and then you, you, you say, , but it, maybe it makes sense for you to try it this way. Just see what, what happens. And there’s 1 of my there’s a mother who came to me and said, an observant Jewish family where a 13 year old son was refusing to do his Bar Mitzvah. He didn’t believe in God and he thought he didn’t want to be a hypocrite. And what I advised the mom to say is obviously, we couldn’t make you do this. You know, all we couldn’t make you learn your Torah portion. We couldn’t, we couldn’t drag on the beam and then move your lips. We obviously, we so no, you don’t have to do it. We couldn’t make you do it at the same time. It’s really important to us that you do it. It’s important to your grandparents and your aunts, uncles and your cousins and your friends who want to welcome to the Jewish community. And I really respect your integrity but not wanting to be a hypocrite about this. But you don’t have to believe it to do this and, and be part of the community. And two days later, after refusing for nine months, you said, OK, I’ll do it. And then he negotiated, you know, he said, well, I don’t want to do it in front of the whole synagogue. I do it on a Monday or something. But, but he did it and I just find like it, it’s almost, it’s, it’s like a superpower of taking force off the table because kids want their life to work. They don’t want to fight with this constantly and we, and it takes two to fight and if we stop fighting, then then we’re much better able to influence.
Frances Shefter: (00:29:44): Yeah, that makes so much sense. I feel like all the stress coming off my shoulders, I can’t wait to start implementing and it.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:29:52): It works.
Frances Shefter: (00:29:54): It does. Yeah. The few times I’ve done it, I know it works and when you, and when you think it through, it really makes sense of why, why it would work and why, what we’re doing, you know, it’s what our parents did, how did it make us feel when our parents did it to us? You know, that how we want our kids to feel?
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:30:12): You know, and say to the, when I first wrote about this, this idea of parent consultant, it was 1986. I had an article in McCall’s magazine about how not to fight with, with kids about your homework. But I suggest that you say to kids, I love you too much to fight with you about your homework. I’m willing to help you in any way I can. I’m willing to be your homework consultant to help you figure out how to get it done or like that. But you’re the most precious thing in the universe, man. I’m not willing to, to, to, to have all the stress between us over something like your homework and, and I think really, I love you too much to fight with you about almost anything because there’s more effective ways of influencing kids than fighting with them.
Frances Shefter: (00:30:55): Yeah. I mean, that’s true with all relationships if you think about it.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:30:58): It is, isn’t it?
Frances Shefter: (00:31:00): Right? Like fighting with my husband, fighting with my siblings, fighting with friends, you know, like everything, none of us feel good when we’re fighting.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:31:08): I know. I know, especially if it’s the same fight over and over and over again. Yeah. You know, it, you know, I think that most marriages, you have disagreements about stuff and you may tempers may flare briefly but, but it’s toxic but it’s the same thing over and over again.
Frances Shefter: (00:31:26): No, it makes sense that every morning we’re doing that same argument every single morning and I’m stressed, she’s stressed. It’s not good for any of us. Yeah, it makes sense. It’s funny. I’m thinking my friends that might be watching the show were like, oh, yeah, you’re gonna give up control. I am. You know.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:31:43): Well, and the thing is that it’s not again that we said we’re, we’re like the guides in our family. We set limits but our authority, we, we lose our natural authority when we get down the same level as a kid. We start on a kids’ level, arguing back and forth. If we lose our, we have natural authority in our families because we’re older, we have more experience, we have the money, you know, we’ve always kind of, we can drive kids or not, you know, we have all kinds of ways of influence, but we lose our natural authority when we, when we got to lower ourselves basically and just argue with kids or fight with them. Because there’s more, there’s more skillful ways to do it that, that, that don’t rupture a relationship and don’t make us feel powerless.
Frances Shefter: (00:32:28): And actually the more I think about it, the more I’m thinking I have more control when I do the choice because if we’re fighting, I have no control, I can’t force it. We’re just gonna keep fighting,
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:32:43): I realized I can’t, I think I did my internship in psychology at the Children’s Hospital in Boston. And I remember somebody Barry Brasilton was a pediatrician there. He was the most famous pediatrician in the world at the time. And I hear about these, these failure to thrive infants. And his war and I think Barry Brazil, you can be Hulk Hogan or you can be Barry Brasil. You can’t make an infant eat. You can’t, you know, like that, they can’t make them do it once I realize you really can’t make kids do stuff. You know, if kids don’t want to get into the car to go to grandma’s and they’re four years old, you pick them up and put in the car, but they aren’t getting in the car. You can’t make them once I realized that. I felt like it was so liberating because the idea is if you can’t make a kid do something, it couldn’t be your responsibility to see that they turn out a certain way. And our job, in my opinion is to figure out, help them figure out who they want to be, what kind of life they want and how to create the life that they want. Yeah, I think so. It’s not that, that I think we have a stronger sense of control when we give up doing things that make us feel helpless.
Frances Shefter: (00:33:58): It’s letting go of what we think is the perfect life for our children. You know, because obviously, you know, I have a master’s degree and my, you know, my JD and stuff and education is extremely important in my house. But if my kids decide to not go to college, I need to be ok with that.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:34:18): And I talked to a mother a couple of weeks just a couple of weeks ago who said I really, I’m so grateful for, for you. You’re encouraging me to, to let my kid figure out who you wanted to be because he, didn’t, he didn’t go to the path I had envisioned for him. He didn’t want to go to college. But he, he’s in his mid thirties now. He’s, he’s really happy with his life as a rock and roll musician. He does all that. He works for a lot of these nonprofits for these projects and he makes enough money. He’s got really good friends. He’s got a really nice girlfriend. He’s as happy as any kid. I know in a young adult. I know. And, if I would have fought with him all those years trying to make him into who I thought he should be yeah, I’d be miserable. And, and I just, some, somebody said to me many, many years ago, I don’t even remember who it was. He said the thing I loved about raising my kids when they’re adolescents was every day when they come home from school, you get to see who they’re deciding to be. And I just, you know, for me, I just I love, I love the idea that it really is their life and they like to kind of figure out and I was struck when I used to do psychotherapy, how many people are? I’d see a 40 year old, how many 40 year olds I saw and they, I’d say, how can I help? And they’d say, I feel like I spent the first 40 years of my life trying to live up to their people expectations. Now I’m trying to figure out what’s important to me.
Frances Shefter: (00:35:46): Yeah. Which makes sense. I used to, you know, I’ve said often, like, why are older people so grumpy? And I’m like, because they can be right, like, you don’t have to answer to anybody. Right. It’s finally when you hit that age of retirement and, you know, you can be as grumpy as you want because who cares what are you going to do?
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:36:10): Right. That’s true.
Frances Shefter: (00:36:13): So, it got me thinking what you’re just saying about transitions and transition plans and that’s where, , I know in IEPs often, that area is neglected in IEP so much in the school system.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:36:29): I don’t even read this part of the, that part of the IEP. Yeah. Oh, I’ll see kids who, you know, have severe language disorders and their academic skills the first percentile and, and the transition. Well, the plan is to go to college. Well, you know, if, you academic schools, college is hard and, and I think that our kids have no, they’re gonna be musicians and they have no backup plan and the school doesn’t really help them and inform them here’s what you’re really good at you know, that kind of thing. So, yeah, I don’t pay much attention.
Frances Shefter: (00:37:08): Getting hired by the parents. They want me to make sure that he is right and right, and get, you know, get the transition plan. But whether it’s, that’s actually done or not is a whole other thing.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:37:21): I do see kids who, who with special needs, who have very, fairly thoughtful where, where, where the transition people really need to help think. But I also see a lot of kids where they aren’t worth reading.
Frances Shefter: (00:37:35): Right. No. Oh, no. Usually they’re not worth reading and I rewrite them.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:37:41): Yeah.
Frances Shefter: (00:37:42): That experience of my teaching experience. I rewrite IEPs all the time. It’s just like, why did I let them draft it if I had just drafted this in the first place? , because I can take an evaluation and I know how to put it into an IEP the right way. And that’s not knocking on teachers at all because teachers aren’t taught how to write. IEPs. Nowhere in any of my schooling was I taught how to write an IEP.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:38:08): Yeah. Bless your heart. Yeah.
Frances Shefter: (00:38:11): It’s hard but there are classes out there of how to write at IEP and stuff and it’s, you know, go and do it. Not saying the teachers, you know, they have enough on their plates. But, yeah. Yeah, it makes life easier.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:38:22): Well, yeah, if you, you’re gonna do it, it’s good to know how to do it.
Frances Shefter: (00:38:27): Right. Exactly. And, I mean, I’m just thinking about my teachers days. I much more prefer walking into an IEP meeting in which we’re all in the same page. Yeah, it’s good. We just want to talk through this issue or that issue, but for the most part we’re on the same page. Boom. And IEP meetings done in a half an hour. Whereas when it’s not well written and the parents either themselves or hire an advocate or an attorney comes in, it’s like we have to rewrite it and we have to fight about it. We have to talk about it and just double the work. So, yeah, that makes sense. This has been so amazing. It’s so funny because I have, I do these shows and I have people on and I always, you know, as a parent of two kids, I always learn stuff and take it home and, you know, like I did another show, we got to do this and I learned so much. So, thank you so much for being on the show. And sharing all of your wisdom with us.
Dr. William Stixrud: (00:39:22): My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
VOICEOVER: (00:39:25): You’ve been listening to Stress-Free IEP® with your host, Frances Shefter. Remember you do not need to do it all alone. You can reach Frances through www.Shefterlaw.com where prior episodes are also posted. Thank you for your positive reviews, comments and sharing the show with others through YouTube LinkedIn Apple podcast, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and more.
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