Dr. Daniel Amen
Appearances
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
You did a CPT, so we started the IV because it involves a radiopharmaceutical that lights up your brain. And after we started the IV, you took a continuous performance test, which is a 15-minute test of attention, which you actually scored well on. And every time you see a letter, you hit the space bar. Except when you see the letter X. You have to inhibit that.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
We do little kids and old people, and we've now done 260,000 scans on people from 155 countries. Is that not incredible? But it starts a love affair with your own brain. And most people don't care about their brain cells. And in 1991, I didn't care about my own brain. I'm a double board certified psychiatrist, board certified in general psychiatry, child and adolescent psychiatry.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
I was the top student in our neuroscience classes. And I didn't care about my brain. Why? You can't see it. You can see the wrinkles in your skin or the fat around your belly, and you do something when you're unhappy with that. But the brain is one of the only organs we don't screen. Right?
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
Why don't we screen our brain given that if you're blessed to live to 85 or older, you have a one in two chance of having lost your mind, right? You have a 50% risk of being diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease or other forms of dementia just by being 85. And I'm like, no, I'm not okay with that, right? I love my six kids, but I never want to have to live with them, right?
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
I don't want them, we're taking his keys from him. We're going to put him in a, no. Put him in a home.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
Yes. So in 2005, I wrote a book called Preventing Alzheimer's with a friend of mine. And I got so much grief. It's like, no, you can't do that. No, you can't do it. Last year, The Lancet published an article that said 50% of Alzheimer's disease is preventable.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
And how do you prevent it? You prevent or treat the 11 major risk factors that steal your mind. So if you knew a train was going to hit you, wouldn't you at least want to get out of the way?
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
yes right and so for example what we learned is if you're overweight as your weight goes up the actual physical size and function of the brain goes down and that should scare the fat off anyone if you have diabetes much more likely to get alzheimer's disease if you have low blood flow to your brain for Whatever reason, too much caffeine, alcohol, marijuana, nicotine, not good for your brain.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
And so when you fall in love with your brain, you realize you have to treat it. better. And I think COVID, and that was the reason I saw Kendall. She got really anxious after she got COVID. And you could just see the inflammatory bomb that went off in her brain. Infectious disease is a major cause of psychiatric illnesses. and nobody knows it, and I didn't know it, right?
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
It was not in my training program. But COVID, for example, if you get COVID, you have a 25% increased risk of having a new onset psychiatric illness within the next six months. It's like, oh my goodness. Or Lyme disease, and California, we have a lot of Lyme disease here.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
If you put a map up of the highest incidence of schizophrenia in the United States, it's the Northeast, the North Midwest, and the West Coast. So highest incidence of schizophrenia. And you overlay that with the highest incidence of Lyme disease, they're virtually identical. So is it possible if you have schizophrenia or you love somebody with it, should you at least be screened for Lyme disease?
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
And you should look because if you're psychotic, which means you've lost touch with reality, that's a brain dysfunction.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
Often. In fact, one of my best stories. I love stories. I love stories.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
So Adriana. Sixteen beautiful straight A's. Her family goes to Yosemite on vacation. And when they get to their mountain cabin, they're surrounded by six deer. And they think it's a magical moment. But 10 days later, Adriana starts to hallucinate. She becomes paranoid. She's aggressive. She ends up in a psychiatric hospital, not once, three times.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
She's on multiple antipsychotic medications and her mother's just beside herself. And the last doctor told the mother she has schizophrenia. She's going to be on these medications for the rest of her life. At which point her mother found me, brought her to one of my clinics. We saw that her brain was inflamed and we didn't know why. And it turned out she had Lyme disease from a deer tick.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
Most people don't care about their brains. Why? You can't see it. You can see the wrinkles in your skin, fat around your belly. Why don't we screen our brain? How do you know unless you look? Right.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
It happens that quickly. Wow. And on an antibiotic... Adriana got her life back and then ended up finishing high school, graduated from Pepperdine, got a master's degree from the University of London. And today she's normal.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
here here's this prescription take this and we'll see you in six months and see if it works now i work really hard to say things as simply as i can because i never want the words to get in the way and we have a high school course called brain thrive by 25 i'm so excited about it And it was studied. So it's 12 weeks, 24 hours.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
We teach middle schoolers, high schoolers to love and care for their brain.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
And it decreases drug, alcohol, and tobacco use, decreases depression. and it improves self-esteem. And that's the answer to this epidemic problem. And people go, oh, it's social media. And yeah, social media is part of it. And oh, it's our ultra-processed foods. Yeah, and that's part of it. But nobody loves and cares for their brain.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
If you love and care for it because you realize that's your future, you're just less likely to smoke pot, which is not innocuous, right? That's the messaging is it's innocuous. You're less likely to drink. Alcohol is not a health food. You're suspicious about psilocybin, which is now it's the most common question I get asked when I lecture. You know, what do you think about magic mushrooms?
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
And I'm like, I'm really worried because I think it's going to go the way the opiate epidemic went. oh wow really yeah remember in the late 90s um my wife's a nurse and she said oh now pain is the fifth vital sign we have to ask them about their pain and if they're in pain they need an opiate and it got us this incredible disaster right we're in now we need to be cautious and you know
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
if you take an opiate for example it makes your white blood cells mad and so helps in the short run in the long run makes you dependent on them right because you've made your white blood cells mad now you always have to calm them down for any like you're against drinking in its entirety correct Well, anything that increases the risk of seven different types of cancer, I'm against.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
And there's not a week that goes by where alcohol hasn't devastated one of my patients or family members' lives. It's just always because they drink and then they say things they shouldn't say or they do things they shouldn't do. So yeah, I'm not a fan of alcohol.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
Well, that's the exciting news, is even if you've been bad to your brain, you can make it better. And I can prove it. So I did the big NFL study. I've scanned and treated 400 NFL players, cool players like Terry Bradshaw and Dick Buckus. 80% of my players with these bad brains get better when we put them on a rehabilitation program.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
And I was just thinking about BJ Fogg, who's a friend of mine, he's a professor at Stanford, We were at a conference together. We did some work together. And he said, I wake up 100% every day. And I'm like, why? He said, because of you, I stopped drinking. So the question really becomes with alcohol or other things that are not good for your brain is what do you really want?
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
Right, if you really go inside and you go, what do I really want? And I want energy, I want memory, I want focus, I want creativity, I want connection, I want passion. Well alcohol just doesn't fit, right? I'm like, if I got a tattoo I don't have any and beware of them, right? New research on lymphomas and tattoos.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
Does it fit? Does my behavior fit the goals I have for my life? So with all of my patients, one of the first things I do is an exercise called the one-page miracle. On one piece of paper, write down what you want. What do you want in your relationships? So if you're married, what do you want with your spouse? Or you have a partner, what do you want with your children?
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
What do you want with your family? What do you want with your money? What do you want with your work? What do you want with your physical, emotional, and spiritual health? What do you want? And then, does it fit? In my book, I brought you a copy. It's called Your Brain is Always Listening. One of my favorite books. I rewrote the 12-step program.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
Because, you know, the addiction 12-step program was written in the 1930s and there's no neuroscience in it.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
No. Wow. And so I updated it. Okay. And so step one is admitting your life is out of control. And from a neuroscience perspective, I'm like, no, that's step two. Step one is what do you want? Relationships, work, money, physical, emotional, spiritual help. Really get clarity. And then step two, my life is out of control, is real easy because it doesn't fit what you want.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
So I wrote another book called Unchain Your Brain, breaking the addictions that steal your life. And it's not one thing. It's like six different things. And so you have to know what type. And when I first started scanning in 1991, I was the director of a substance abuse treatment program. And their brains were so bad. I mean, one of the reasons I don't drink
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
It makes your brain look older than you are. Their brains look smaller. They look shriveled and unlike. I have a poster that hangs in about 100,000 schools and prisons and doctor's offices around the world called, Which Brain Do You Want? Healthy scan, drug-affected scans, and everything. Thank you. Thank you.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
I mean, think about this. Psychiatrists are the only medical doctors who never look at the organ they treat. So last year, there were over 340 million prescriptions written for antidepressants without any biological data. That's insane, right? I'm a psychiatrist, so I know how to diagnose crazy. And that's crazy.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
Because if you don't look, then you don't know, was it the car accident when you were 16 that contributed to being sad? Or was it because your brain works too hard because you had a sexual assault? Or was it because you live in a mold-filled home?
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
Thank you. All that is amazing. But we have to love our children's brains. Do you know I have a new book called Raising Mentally Strong Kids?
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
you just don't know and when i started looking at the brain it changed absolutely everything in my life um if one of my kids dates somebody new they're going to be scanned oh i love that and my 21 year old Chloe, who is in love, and I love her boy. But he played football. And so, yes, we have to look at his brain.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
Tell me about it. And in large part, we have to love and care for their brains and teach them. So there's a game. So I have a game. It's called Chloe's Game for my daughter. And is this good for your brain or bad for it? And if I would say avocado, she'd go, two thumbs up, God's butter. If I said blueberry, she'd put her little hands on her hips and go, are they organic?
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
Because non-organic blueberries hold more pesticides than almost any other fruit. I'm like, of course they're organic. She goes, God's candy. I said, talking back to your redheaded mother. She goes, oh, very bad. Too much stress. Yeah.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
Yes, and you can still call it Chloe's game.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
So, I love it so much. I first learned about it in the early 90s, but a lot of people, when they've had trauma, They do everything they can to not think about it. To block it out and when they get triggered, they drink or they smoke pot or do whatever. With EMDRs, you actually bring it up and they have your eyes going back and forth
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
And it begins to integrate the trauma, connect it to other things in the past, and then it dissipates.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
So this does the opposite. Is you bring it up and then it dissipates. And I always want my patients going into the pain rather than blocking the pain. Because when you suppress the pain with alcohol, it always comes back and rebounds it. When you go through it, you begin to understand it and process it. So I did a study on EMDR on police officers.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
who all left work after they were involved in shootings so they had emotional trauma and average of eight sessions they all went back to work and it calmed down the diamond in their brain and for Therapy, my favorite things to do. One, love your brain. Two, stop believing every stupid thing you think. So I have a children's book called Captain Snout and the Superpower Questions.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
It's about killing the ants. Ants stands for automatic negative thoughts. Thoughts that come into your mind automatically and ruin your day. And I was 28 years old in my psychiatric residency when my One of my professors said, you have to teach your patients not to believe every stupid thing they think. I'm 28 years old. I'm in my residency, finished medical school. I'm really well educated.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
No one had ever told me that before. I believed every stupid thing I thought. So here's the exercise. Whenever you feel sad or mad or nervous or out of control, write down what you're thinking and then ask yourself, is it true? Can I absolutely know that's true? How does that thought make me feel? Terrible. How would I feel without the thought? So much up here.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
And then you take the original thought and you turn it to the opposite. And you ask yourself if the opposite of the thought is bothering me is true. This is so cool. It's so powerful. And so basically I teach all my patients one page miracle. What do you want? Then we have to kill the ants, the automatic negative thoughts.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
And then whatever trauma is there, we use things like EMDR to help them get rid of it with a healthy brain.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
Well, your brain, the moment-by-moment physical function of your brain creates your mind.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
And if your brain's not right, your mind's not right. But if your brain is healthy, you still have to program your mind. And it's programmed by what you allow it to do. And if you're not really thinking about it and spending three hours on social media, TikTok's programming your mind. Yes. Or Facebook is programming your mind.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
Well, anything that increases the risk of seven different types of cancer, I'm against. I want energy, memory, focus. I want passion. Well, alcohol just doesn't fit.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
Because they realize if you're in my family, the brain matters. Right. Right. And so it's just something you do. And I was married once before and I got divorced 25 years ago. And if I was ever going to get married again, the first naked part of her I wanted to see was her brain. And Tana and I have been together for 20 years. I scanned her
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
So you want to be very careful because their goal is money. So they... want mind share because then they can get into your wallet and it's not necessarily good for you.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
But if you do it on a regular basis, so every night I go to bed and I say a prayer and then I go, what went well today? And I start at the beginning of my day, and I'm structured hour by hour. What did I like about the day? And the bad stuff shows up. And I'm like, no, not now, later. And I go back to what went well.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
People who do that for just three weeks notice a significant increase in their level of happiness. Yes.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
literally three weeks after we met each other and nobody thinks about it right you go to a marital therapist a relationship therapist and no one's looking at the brain which is just crazy you're so right but
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
Right. I mean, one of the first big lessons is all psychiatric illnesses, anxiety, depression, OCD, ADHD. It's not one thing. I mean, you would never give everyone who had chest pain. the same treatment, right? That would be malpractice, that would be stupid, that would be insane.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
But yeah, you go tell your doctor you're depressed, the first thing he or she is gonna do is give you an SSRI, which in large scale studies work no better than placebo. And it's like, well, why is that? Because SSRIs work for the right brain, but they do not work for the wrong brain. In fact, they can make you worse.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
So my wife, Tana, when she was she writes about this in her book, The Relentless Courage of a Scared Child. She grew up in a really crazy environment. And in her mid 20s, she had thyroid cancer. And she went to UC Irvine and saw a psychiatrist and he gave her Prozac and it made her less anxious. But it also disinhibited her.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
hated the term mental illness, it's shaming. It's stigmatizing. So what if mental health was really brain health? And that's the revolution that I'm trying to create.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
And all of a sudden, she's in Costa Rica with someone she had just met going, how did I get here? she started making really impulsive, stupid decisions. And when you look at her brain, she has sleepy frontal lobes. SSRIs, serotonin is an inhibitory neurotransmitter, calms things down. So if you start with sleepy frontal lobes, it makes them sleepier.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
And then it's like taking the brake off of your impulse control. So getting the wrong medicine can disrupt your life in a very bad way.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
So 1991, I went to my first lecture on brain spec imaging. That's what we do. And I'm so excited. I'm still excited. And the next year I went to an all-day lecture at the American Psychiatric Association on brain spec imaging in child psychiatry. So there was a lot of excitement, but very quickly they realized scans don't go with the current paradigm.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
They don't go with making diagnoses based on symptom clusters with no biological data. And we have our big Bible. It's called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the DSM. and it really goes, okay, the DSM's not the thing. And all of a sudden, the American Psychiatric Association went, oh, no, we shouldn't scan.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
And that's really when the war, when I went to war with the American Psychiatric Association. Even though I have their highest award, they give members. And if I'm right, and I am, you should image the brain before you go about messing with it. It means that 40,000 psychiatrists and hundreds of thousands of regular doctors are not doing the right thing.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
And when you tell people that, they don't say thank you. And there's actually this great book called The Structure of Scientific Revolution. It's how do revolutions happen? And the first thing is somebody notices a problem. The outcomes in psychiatry are no better than they were in the 1950s. We should be ashamed of that. So the outcomes are not better than the year I was born in 1954. That's sad.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
So someone notices there's a problem. The status quo notices the problem but they make small changes because they're protecting the money.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
And then someone comes up with a new mouse trap. We should scan. When you scan and look at the brain, you then treat it as an organ. And you just don't try to drug it into submission. You get people to eat better. You get them to exercise. You get them to go to sleep. You get them to put down their phones. Give them supplements to nourish their brain.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
One of the things for you, recommended hyperbaric oxygen to help repair the accident you had. It's not just, oh, you have this, take that. And so the next stage in the revolution, if it disrupts somebody's money, and I disrupt the pharmaceutical industry, then they try and kill you.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
And that's just normal. It's what happens. And I think 10 years from now, it's going to be radically different.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
So I went to medical school in the 70s. So my short story is I was 18. Vietnam was still going on. And I had a low draft number and became an infantry medic and
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
uh my love of medicine was born there but about a year into it i realized i didn't like getting shot at it's like not for me i don't like it um and so i got retrained as an x-ray technician and that was the thing our professors used to say how do you know unless you look right and then i got out of the army finished college went to medical school it's 1979 I marry my childhood sweetheart.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
Two months later, she tries to kill herself. And I took her to see a wonderful psychiatrist. And I came to realize if he helped her, which he did, it wouldn't just help her. It would help me. It would help our children. It would help our grandchildren. But I fell in love with the only medical specialty that never looks at the organ and treats. And I knew it was wrong.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
I just had no idea I'd be involved in the change. And back then, I hated the term mental illness. If you looked at my ex-wife and go, she has a mental illness. It's shaming.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
Nobody wants it. What if we thought of these as brain health issues? Nobody wants to be called mental. everybody likes to be called a brain yes right so what if mental health was really brain health and that's the revolution that i'm trying to create it's like let's stop calling these things mental let's create a brain yeah i had one of my young stars came into my office and
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
You know, sometimes they come, sometimes they don't, sometimes they do what you say, mostly they don't. But he came into my office and he said, I think I get what you're trying to tell me. My brain is an organ like my heart is an organ. If you told me I had heart problems, I'd do everything you said. So I'm going to do everything you say. And then he just got better.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Let's Talk Brain Health ft. Dr. Daniel Amen
And I'm so excited about changing the paradigm away from more money for mental health care as it's currently practiced. That's just going to get us deeper into this disaster we're in. But more money to create a brain health revolution.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jay’s Must Listens: What Every Parent Needs to Hear Right Now—How to Raise Confident & Emotionally Strong Kids (Ft. Dr. Amen & Kim Kardashian)
So if my son came home and said, dad, I want to have blue hair. I don't know what your father would have said, but I know what mine would have said. You know, as long as you live in this house, you can have blue hair. But what does that do? It just stops the conversation or it starts a fight. Active listening teaches you, repeat back what you hear. Oh, you want to have blue hair.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jay’s Must Listens: What Every Parent Needs to Hear Right Now—How to Raise Confident & Emotionally Strong Kids (Ft. Dr. Amen & Kim Kardashian)
And then be quiet long enough for them to explain what's really going on. And he might say, all the kids are wearing their hair blue. Now, I've been to a school. I know not everybody's blue-headed. And if I would have said that to my dad, I don't know what your dad would have said. I don't care what anybody else is doing. As long as you live in this house, you're not going to have blue hair.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jay’s Must Listens: What Every Parent Needs to Hear Right Now—How to Raise Confident & Emotionally Strong Kids (Ft. Dr. Amen & Kim Kardashian)
If they're going to jump off a bridge, are you going with them?
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jay’s Must Listens: What Every Parent Needs to Hear Right Now—How to Raise Confident & Emotionally Strong Kids (Ft. Dr. Amen & Kim Kardashian)
And what does it do? Stops the conversation or it starts a fight. Sounds like you want to be like the other kids. completely different conversation. But that's, and he might say, dad, you know, sometimes I feel like I don't fit in. Now my mother would have said, what do you mean you don't fit in? Of course you fit in. You're a good boy. You're a good looking boy. You're a nice boy.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jay’s Must Listens: What Every Parent Needs to Hear Right Now—How to Raise Confident & Emotionally Strong Kids (Ft. Dr. Amen & Kim Kardashian)
And that's not helpful either. What's just helpful is so sometimes you feel like you don't fit in. And then give it a breath. So they're the ones solving their problem. Now, at the end of a half an hour, he says, I still want to have blue hair. I'm going to tell him no way in hell as long as you live in my house, because it's not cool to look weird.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jay’s Must Listens: What Every Parent Needs to Hear Right Now—How to Raise Confident & Emotionally Strong Kids (Ft. Dr. Amen & Kim Kardashian)
I mean, if you look weird, you're going to hang out with weird people, right? It's okay to have boundaries, right?
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jay’s Must Listens: What Every Parent Needs to Hear Right Now—How to Raise Confident & Emotionally Strong Kids (Ft. Dr. Amen & Kim Kardashian)
we're not i think it should be both what does it look like well you know we haven't gotten to rules i i think families should have them society has rules like tell the truth do what mom and dad say the first time i love that role because do you know your chance of abusing the child if you tell a child to do something five times your chance of abusing that child just went up significantly.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jay’s Must Listens: What Every Parent Needs to Hear Right Now—How to Raise Confident & Emotionally Strong Kids (Ft. Dr. Amen & Kim Kardashian)
And so if you have the expectation they'll do things the first time, it's like, Caitlin, I want you to take out the trash, like in the next half hour. And if she doesn't, it's like, sweetheart, you have a choice. You can take it out now. Or you can have this consequence and then you can take it out. I don't care, it's up to you. And I love that part of not being attached to it.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jay’s Must Listens: What Every Parent Needs to Hear Right Now—How to Raise Confident & Emotionally Strong Kids (Ft. Dr. Amen & Kim Kardashian)
I love her, I'm really clear, and she's getting that consequence if she doesn't move. Stop threatening them and then not following through. Because you teach them that you have to tell them and get angry and be a bit crazy in order for them to do what you ask them to do.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jay’s Must Listens: What Every Parent Needs to Hear Right Now—How to Raise Confident & Emotionally Strong Kids (Ft. Dr. Amen & Kim Kardashian)
And you're part of the family rather than you're entitled. to live in that family yeah yeah and the earlier you start the the better it is um for kids i mean it's it's hard if you not spend any time with children by the time they're 14 their friends are more important than you are and that's the heartbreaking thing i've learned is
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jay’s Must Listens: What Every Parent Needs to Hear Right Now—How to Raise Confident & Emotionally Strong Kids (Ft. Dr. Amen & Kim Kardashian)
If you're not spending time with them, their friends will take your place. And they may not have the advice. They may not have the right ear for you. And it makes them more vulnerable to all the scary stuff that's on social media.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jay’s Must Listens: What Every Parent Needs to Hear Right Now—How to Raise Confident & Emotionally Strong Kids (Ft. Dr. Amen & Kim Kardashian)
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jay’s Must Listens: What Every Parent Needs to Hear Right Now—How to Raise Confident & Emotionally Strong Kids (Ft. Dr. Amen & Kim Kardashian)
If you want to have influence with your children, if you want them to seriously consider your values, you have to be connected with them.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jay’s Must Listens: What Every Parent Needs to Hear Right Now—How to Raise Confident & Emotionally Strong Kids (Ft. Dr. Amen & Kim Kardashian)
Time. Like actual physical time where you're not on your phone, but you put the phone away and you spend 20 minutes a day with a child. So there's an exercise I talk about in the book that I love so much that... You know, all the things I've recommended to my patients over the last 45 years, when I decided to be a psychiatrist 45 years ago. Special time. It's magic.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jay’s Must Listens: What Every Parent Needs to Hear Right Now—How to Raise Confident & Emotionally Strong Kids (Ft. Dr. Amen & Kim Kardashian)
And 20 minutes a day, do something with your child. Child wants to do. That's reasonable. You can do in 20 minutes. So it's like, not take me to Nordstrom's. And during that time, no commands, no questions, no directions. It's just time to be together. And it's money in the relational bank. And I remember when I first figured this out, my literary agent said, had a child later in life.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jay’s Must Listens: What Every Parent Needs to Hear Right Now—How to Raise Confident & Emotionally Strong Kids (Ft. Dr. Amen & Kim Kardashian)
We were talking on the phone and he's like, my daughter, Laura, doesn't want to have anything to do with me. And she's two. And he said, that's like a girl thing, right? A mother-daughter thing. They don't want anything. I'm like, no, Carl, you're ignoring her. What? What do you mean I'm ignoring? I'm like, you're ignoring her. Do this. And he said, that won't work. I'm like, oh, great.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jay’s Must Listens: What Every Parent Needs to Hear Right Now—How to Raise Confident & Emotionally Strong Kids (Ft. Dr. Amen & Kim Kardashian)
You represent an idiot. My own literary agent won't do what I say. Do it. In fact, I'm going to put you in my schedule for three weeks. I'm going to call you, get the party started. And so three weeks go by. I call him up. Carl, Daniel, she won't leave me alone. As soon as I walk in the door, she grabs my leg and wants her time. All she wants to do is be with me. I'm like, that's a problem?
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jay’s Must Listens: What Every Parent Needs to Hear Right Now—How to Raise Confident & Emotionally Strong Kids (Ft. Dr. Amen & Kim Kardashian)
That's what we want, right? That's what we're after. So actual physical time. And now parents are so busy, they're not spending this one-on-one alone time listening. So that's the second part of it. So time, actual physical time, and shut up. It's so important.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jay’s Must Listens: What Every Parent Needs to Hear Right Now—How to Raise Confident & Emotionally Strong Kids (Ft. Dr. Amen & Kim Kardashian)
You love them so much, you want to pour all of your knowledge, all of your wisdom that you worked your whole life on and download it into their head. Don't do that. Listen to them. And therapists learn this technique called active listening, that whenever someone says something, you don't interrupt and tell them how to think. You repeat it back. And you listen for the feelings behind the words.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Wendy Suzuki: 2 Powerful Tools To Use When You Feel Stressed Out (This Will Lower Your Anxiety in 1 Minute)
If we want a healthy mind, it actually starts with a healthy brain. You know, I've had the blessing or the curse to scan over a thousand convicted felons and over a hundred murderers, and their brains are very damaged.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
And I took my son to a place called Sea Life Park, which is on Oahu and like SeaWorld, they have sea animal shows. And we went to the killer whale show and that was great. And the dolphin show. But at the end of the day, he grabs my shirt. He goes, I want to see Fat Freddy. And I'm like, who's Fat Freddy? It's like the penguin dad. Don't you know anything?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
Hi, Megan. What a joy. I've followed your work for a long time. I'm a huge fan.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
And so we went to the Fat Freddy show and it's this little chubby, humble penguin who is amazing. He comes out onto the stage. He climbs like a 12 foot ladder to a diving board, goes to the edge of the board, bounces and then jumps in the water. And I'm like, whoa. And then... He gets out of the pool, bowls with his nose, counts with his flipper, jumps through a hoop of fire.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
And at the end of the show, the trainer asked him to go get something. And Freddie went and got it. And he brought it right back. And at that moment, time stood still for me. And I'm like, I asked this child to get something from me and he wants to have a discussion for like 20 minutes and then he doesn't want to do it. And I knew my son was smarter than the penguin.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
So I go up to the trainer afterwards and I'm like, how'd you get Freddie to do all these really cool things? And she looked at my son and then looked at me and said, unlike parents, whenever Freddie does anything like what I want him to do, I notice him. I'd give him a hug and I'd give him a fish. And even though my son didn't like raw fish, I realized I was like my dad.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
When he did things I liked, I paid no attention to him at all. And when he didn't do things I liked, I gave him a ton of attention. So I was inadvertently teaching him to do bad things to get my attention. So I'm dense. I collect penguins as a way to just remind myself every day, notice what you like more than what you don't like. And we have a new study. So I have 11 clinics around the country.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
We do brain imaging. If you came to see me, we'd want to look at your brain before we gave you medicine or anything like that. And I have a brand new huge study coming out on negativity bias, negativity versus positivity. It's really the Fat Freddy story. And if you are more negative, you have less function in the front part of your brain as opposed to if you're more positive.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
And so I'm a huge fan of accurate thinking with a positive spin so not positive thinking because that can get you into all sorts of trouble but accurate thinking with a positive spin that's it that i feel like that's
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
But if you start the day with today is going to be a great day. And my favorite one is end the day with what went well today. It's a great exercise to do with the kids. But when I go to bed at night, I say a prayer and then I go, what went well today? And. go through my whole day looking for what was right rather than what was wrong.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
And the bad stuff shows up, but I'm like, nope, this is not your time. And people who do that within three weeks notice a significant difference in their level of happiness. And imagine if you just do it with the kids whenever you have a meal together. It's like, hey, what are you looking forward today? Hey, what went well today? What you're doing is you're training positivity, bias.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
in their minds. And my wife, Tana, she and I do a podcast together. And we just did a big podcast on negativity versus positivity bias. And her mom died just about a year ago. And But she and I noticed she was more negative, and that's what grief does. But as she worked on it, what she said is, I find the micro miracles in my day.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
Even the little things, like I make her a cup of brand healthy hot chocolate every night. And she's like, just the first taste is a micro miracle. And it's a practice. that you can do. And the most effective way to raise mentally strong kids is you be mentally strong yourself. And that's why I'm so grateful you follow me on social media, because that's the whole goal.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
is I was just at the White House and I hate the term mental illness. It shames people. It's stigmatizing and it's wrong. These are brain health issues that steal people's minds. The brain, physical function of your brain creates your mind. And so as your brain is healthier and Your mind is just better. And so getting our food right, exercise.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
And I love we're talking about coordination exercises because people who play racquet sports live longer than everybody else. People who play football and soccer live less long. than everybody else. I did the big NFL study when the NFL was sort of lying. It had a problem with traumatic brain injury in football. I scanned and treated 400 NFL players.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
And what we should be doing with kids is playing racket sports. And I think one of the best things my mom did with me, she's great at ping pong. And I played table tennis growing up and I love table tennis, tennis. Those are the things to do with kids rather than put them in soccer or football, where on average, every year they get a concussion.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
It's so good. But before I do that, get a coach. Go to the USATT.org, United States of America Table Tennis Association.org. Get a coach. The more you work it, the better you will become. It's a cerebellar function, which is a very critical part of the brain. And if you didn't develop that when you're young, you can totally develop it now.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
So brain healthy hot chocolate, raw cacao, organic raw cacao, unsweetened almond milk, heat up the almond milk, put a heaping teaspoon of raw cacao. There's a company I like, no doubt,
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
financial connection to them called sweet leaf they make 11 different flavors of stevia and their chocolate is unbelievable and put in a couple dropper fulls put in a blender it's so good and literally and it's calorie smart right it's about 30 to 60 calories it tastes great it loves you You love it and it loves you back.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
So raw cacao, unsweetened organic almond milk and chocolate stevia from sweet leaf.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
It's a liquid. It goes to whatever your taste is. Some people like it a little bit bitter. Some people like it super sweet. So my grandfather was a candy maker. And so I like sweet things.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
Well, how would you know unless you looked? So I'm a double.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
And I belong to the only medical specialty that virtually never looks at the organ it treats. And so for the last 34 years, we've been doing a study called brain spec imaging, looks at blood flow and activity, looks at how your brain works. And Megan, literally, it has changed everything in my life. how I diagnose my patients, how I treat myself.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
Well, because parents are working so hard, they often have this tremendous guilt about not spending enough time with their children. And so they do, do, do, do, thinking it's somehow benefiting them, but really it's building the parent's self-esteem. by stealing your child's.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
If you date my daughter for more than four months, I'm going to scan you because I really want to know. We have a poster. I don't know if you heard the president and the Department of Justice, but he's about a conversation he had with the Mexican president. And it's like, why doesn't Mexico have the drug problem we have, even though you're selling us the drugs?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
And they have a very vigorous drug education campaign. Well, as soon as I started scanning people in 1991, I take a healthy scan. And then one of my marijuana users, cocaine users, alcoholics, their brains look so bad. And we put it on a poster and called, which brain do you want? Which now hangs in about 100,000 schools, prisons, churches around the world.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
It's like the real reason not to use drugs is they damage your brain alcohol is not a health food and marijuana is not innocuous we have to stop lying to the american public and go these are not good things but the first thing you have to do is get them to fall in love with their brain and that's what the imaging did for me
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
It's your brain is involved in how you think, how you feel, how you act, how you get along with other people. And when your brain works right, you work right. And when it doesn't, you'll never live up to your potential. So now you go, drugs damage the brain. And why would you ever damage your potential unless you are self-defeating?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
Well, one of the big lessons I learned from imaging is mild traumatic brain injury is a major cause of psychiatric illness that nobody knows about because psychiatrists never look. So your suicidal ideation, your depression, your panic attacks, your ADD or learning disabilities could have been from the car accident your family was in when you were four. or I have one patient depressed.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
His whole life fell off the hood of a minivan when he was 18 months old, unconscious for a day. They thought it was a minor injury. Years later, I could still see it. We can see evidence of toxicity from substance abuse, but we also see evidence of toxicity from mold exposure or from Lyme disease.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
And so I think in the future, there's going to be a whole subcategory of psychiatrists that just focus on infectious disease. Like I have hundreds of COVID scans and COVID causes an inflammatory bomb. that just goes off in your brain. Depression is like chest pain, right? Nobody gets a diagnosis of chest pain because it doesn't tell you what causes it and it doesn't tell you what to do for it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
Depression's the same way. Is your brain low in activity so I have to stimulate it? Is it high in activity and I have to calm it? We can also see, I've published another study this year on childhood trauma. Childhood trauma, emotional trauma leaves a lasting signature in the brain. And treatments like EMDR, a specific psychological treatment for trauma, help reset it, help calm things.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
That's the Prince Harry thing.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
Tapping could be part of it. I like the eye movement part of it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
There's this great study out of Harvard where they followed kids literally over 70 years looking at what goes with health, success, and longevity. And the only thing that went with self-esteem was whether or not you worked as a child, whether or not you had a paper route, or you had chores at home, or you actually like me, I had a job.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
Absolutely not. And so in my NFL work, 80% of our players got better when we put them on a rehabilitation program. And these are damaged brains, right? Some of our players, like Dick Butkus... You know, he played for decades and had tens of thousands of hits to his head. He called me his brain savior because on the right treatment, his brain just a couple of months later was much better.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
And that's the big news in neuroscience is you're not stuck with the brain you have. You can make it better now. And I can prove it. And every day your brain, there's a part of your brain called the hippocampus, really interesting. It's shaped, hippocampus is Greek for seahorse because that's how it's shaped. Every day it makes 700 new stem cells.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
So every day your brain is making 700 new baby seahorses that are involved in mood and memory and your behavior changes. is either growing them or murdering them, right? If you have to have two to four glasses of wine at night, you're murdering the babies. If you're smoking a lot of pot, you're murdering the babies.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
I posted something two days ago that if you're under 50 and smoking marijuana, you have a six-fold increase of having a heart attack. It's like, whoa, not good for the blood flow in your body. If you go to bed a half an hour early tonight, you're growing your seahorses. If you take a multiple vitamin and fish oil and optimize your vitamin D level, you're growing your seahorses.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
If you eat food you love that loves you back, like brand healthy hot chocolate, you're growing your seahorses. And Megan, it comes down to one question. And I played this game with my daughter, Chloe, when she was little. Thank you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
My dad owned grocery stores, and from the time I was 10, I went to work. And what working does is it boosts your sense of competence and competence is directly related to self-esteem. So if you're solving all of your children's problems, they don't feel competent and thus don't feel very good about themselves.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
No question that they get... in their mind more connection. And, you know, I mean, it's so rewarding. Take the wisdom you gained over decades and pour it. down your child's brain. The problem is it just doesn't work. What we're teaching them is to not be competent. And when a child says, I'm bored, rather than go, well, you could do this, or you could do that, or how about we do this together?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
Just repeat it back. It's like, you're bored. I wonder what you're going to do about it. and then be quiet long enough for them to generate their own solutions. Parents talk way too much. And in raising mentally strong kids, I talk about the first thing is know what you want. What kind of parent do you wanna be? What kind of child do you want to raise? I want to raise mentally strong kids.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
Well, that means I have to teach them to solve problems. I can't do it for them. And then the second thing, it's bonding. And bonding requires two things. Time, actual physical time. Parents are so busy and so distracted by their own devices that they're not spending time with children and kids. really important, a willingness to listen.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
So when your child says something on board, rather than solve it for him, go, just repeat back what you hear. It's what therapists do all the time, at least.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
Wait for them to fill in the blank because they're filling it in using their brain to generate options.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
Like, I wonder, what could you do? What can you do? And then be quiet so that their brain works to fill in. Now, after five minutes, if they're like, what can I do? What can I do? Do you want to hear maybe what other kids might do? And then generate options. But you know, as soon as you generate options, they're going to argue with them.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
Well, I think the way forward is bonding and connection and modeling. You really want to raise brain healthy kids is you have to live the message. You have to model it. And the more you model a healthy brain, a healthy mind, healthy relationships, If your children like you, and this is very important, if they don't like you, they pick the opposite values.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
So growing up, I did not have a good relationship with my dad. He worked all the time. The only time I saw him is when I went to work with him and he tended to notice what was wrong about me more than what was right about me. 1972, I turn 18. It's the first time I can vote. He says, if I vote for McGovern, the country will go to hell.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
I vote for McGovern and the country went to hell, but it had nothing to do with McGovern. It was all Nixon. But it was the lack of bonding and connection that drove me to do the opposite of him. If he would have spent time with me, listened to me, now I'm one of seven, so it was chaos in my family, but it would have been much different.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
Now, later on in life, he's my best friend, and we vote in a similar way, but... It's so important, that connection. And that bonding is not doing everything they want you to do. Bonding is time. It's listening and helping them learn to be competent.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
Well, you know, I think always default to firm and kind. And yes, at 11, 13, 15, they need guidance. I always say, God gave you parents until your frontal lobes develop. So the front third of your brain is called the prefrontal cortex. It is actually not fully developed until you're 25. And that's why we need to do a much better job of protecting young developing brains.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
Like not giving them access to social media until they're 14, 15, 16, just because it's so toxic there for them. So being involved and supervising them and kids hate it when you supervise them. and they hate it more when you don't, because in their mind, it's like you don't care.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
So, I mean, until my kids were 17, 18, I want to know where you are, who you're with, what you're doing, and oh, by the way, I'm going to check. And now we have ways to check that we're much better than when my kids were young. And so but when they're old, your job is to be sort of a good friend and a good coach. And never forget, I'm always a long term planner.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
Never forget, they're the ones that are going to be taking care of you. And so I'm always sort of kind to my children. But if I do too much, I create dependence. And that's absolutely not what you want when they're 25 or 30.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
Yeah, no, I think it's that line. But if you really think he's a shit, you need to tell him because you need to tell her because new love is a drug. New love is just like you've been taking cocaine. And you're not thinking rationally. And often it takes six months, a year, 18 months for you to see, oh, this person's really not great for me. And It goes back to the relationship.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
If they know you want to spend time with them, that you're listening to them, that you're rooting for them like a good coach. I always think, you know, who's the best teacher you've ever had? Who's the best coach you've ever had? They notice what you do right. And they teach you when you could do better.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
And too often, parents that are ineffective notice what you do wrong and never let you forget it. And so maybe a little bit like your mom, clearly like my dad. And that's not effective because if he goes, oh, you shouldn't do this, my mind, just to oppose him, is like... Well, I think I should do that.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
Well, there's a part in the book, Raising Mentally Strong Kids, that I just loved so much. And I collect penguins. In my office at work, I have dozens of them. And the reason I collect penguins is, so I have six kids, and three of them are adopted. And I adopted my oldest, and he was hard for me. argumentative, oppositional. And I really didn't like being a dad.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Raising Mentally Strong Kids, with Dr. Daniel Amen, and Inside the Tragic "Rust" Set Shooting, with Rachel Mason | Ep. 1039
I'm like, this is just no fun at all. And I was a child psychiatry fellow. So I was doing my child psychiatry training and I'm talking to my supervisor about it. And she says, you have to spend more time with him, which was sort of the last thing I wanted to do. And I was living in Hawaii at the time. That's where I did my child psychiatry fellowship.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
How to Control Your Mind & Redirect Your Energy to Self Transformation
So I start every day with today is going to be a great day because once you get the physical functioning of your brain healthy you then have to program and so i knew i was going to talk to you first thing that came up in my mind so i start every day and if you have children It's really good to do this at breakfast, which is if you have breakfast. So why is today going to be a great day for you?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
How to Control Your Mind & Redirect Your Energy to Self Transformation
Directing your mind, which for many people, because of evolution, they wake up in a negative state. It puts your brain in a positive state. And then my favorite of all the habits I do is when I go to bed at night, I say a prayer and then I go, what went well today? And I go on a treasure hunt. And I actually start from the very moment I woke up looking for what was right. about the day.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
How to Control Your Mind & Redirect Your Energy to Self Transformation
And I've done this now seven or eight years. And even the night my dad died about two and a half years ago, it was an awful, awful day. I did it because it was my habit, right? The brain is lazy. It does what you nudge it to do. And so It really helped me even in a really hard time.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
How to Control Your Mind & Redirect Your Energy to Self Transformation
But it's almost my favorite time of the day because like you, I'm busy and great things will happen and I'll just not really focus on it. But it's that treasure hunt that is just so good.