Dr. Leonard Sax
Appearances
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
That's kind of a new term that has evolved over the last 10 years. But now a lot of parents are really into this gentle parenting. And gentle parenting, you know, there's lots of different definitions and lots of different gurus out there. But one thing they have in common is that gentle parenting means letting kids decide. Well, letting kids decide is actually a really bad idea.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
And how do we know this? The fundamental question is, what is childhood for? What is childhood for? That's not a trivial question. And the answer is not obvious. A four-year-old horse is a mature adult. The Kentucky Derby is raced with three-year-olds. And a horse is a bigger animal than a human.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
So the answer cannot be it's about biological maturation because a horse is a bigger animal than a human and it only takes four years for a horse to become fully mature. So the answer cannot be that it's about becoming biologically mature because it only takes a horse four years. Humans are children or adolescents for more years than most animals live. Why? Why does it take so long?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
We don't have to wonder. We have scholars like Dr. Melvin Connor at Emory who's devoted his entire career to addressing this question and comparing development in our species with development in other species like other primates. And he wrote this 800-page tome, The Evolution of Childhood, comparing development in our species with development in other species. And the answer the scholars give
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
is that development in our species takes as many years as it does because it takes many years for the parents to teach the child right and wrong. That's your job. And I say that in the book, and then the next paragraph says, I quote a column from the New York Times.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Jennifer Finney Boylan, a longtime columnist, wrote a column on enlightened parenting in which she asserts that enlightened parenting means, and I'm quoting her, setting your child free to discover for herself her own right and wrong. And if in so doing your child becomes a stranger to you, then so be it, end quote. Well, that may seem enlightened, but it's not.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
If you set your child free to discover their own right and wrong, and they have a device with internet access, what they'll discover is Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion, mainstream pornography, SZA, and a lot of really bad things out there. And you will end up with a child who is adrift, who is anxious, and who is depressed. Human development works when parents are authoritative.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
This is the work of Diana Baumgren, the great scholar at Cal Berkeley who spent 50 years following families and found that the parents who are both strict and loving, which is her definition of authoritative parenting, and she coined the phrase,
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Parents who are both strict and loving had the kids who had the best outcomes, least likely to be anxious and depressed, most likely to sustain romantic relationships, least likely to be convicted of felony. Both strict and loving. But in the later decades of her career, she found that American parents are becoming confused. They think you have to choose between being strict or loving.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
They don't understand that the best parents are both strict and loving. And so that's what I'm trying to communicate to parents. You have to be both strict and loving. You have to set the guidelines, but also communicate love. A friend is a peer. A friend cannot command.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
A friend cannot say, I'm taking your phone from you at nine o'clock at night and putting it in the charger, which is going to be the parents' bedroom, so you can get a good night's sleep. A friend cannot say that. Only a parent can say that. You've got to exercise your authority as a parent so your kid can get a good night's sleep. And if you don't do that, your kid will be literally in danger.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
You know, again, another example from my own practice. For 18 years, I was an attending physician at Shady Grove Hospital in Rockville, Maryland, admitting patients and consulting on patients. And one night I got a call from the emergency room, a 15-year-old girl, patient of mine was a victim of sexual assault, but they were not calling me to admit her or to consult on her.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
They were calling me because mom was in the emergency room. Hysterical is the word that the ER physician used and wanted me to come in and talk with her. So I came in to meet with her in the consultation room just adjacent to the ER. When I came in to talk to mom, it's just her and me. And the first thing she said, mom said to me, I knew I shouldn't have let her go.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
It was a frat party at the college. She's 15 years old. I knew I shouldn't have let her go. And of course you want to shake mom and say, well, then why'd you let her go? But I didn't say that because I knew the answer. The answer was she wants to be her daughter's best friend. And a friend cannot command. A friend cannot prohibit.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
So I was sharing this story with parents in Tampa, Florida, and a mom came up to me afterwards and shared her story with me. Her daughter, 14 years old, came up to her and said, hey, guess what? We're all going to Cancun for spring break. And mom looked at her phone. She said, well, I can't get away that week. I'm busy. And mom said, I didn't say your daughter said, I didn't say you're going.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Me, all the girls, we're going to Cancun for spring break. Mom said, wait, Cancun, that's where all the college men go for spring break. And you're 14, but you could easily pass for 18. I don't think it's safe. And her daughter said, oh, it's totally fine. It's safe. It's fine. We'll stay together. We'll have our phones. It's totally fine. And mom said, no, you're not going.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
And mom told me her daughter exploded, started screaming at her. I hate you. I hate you. You're going to totally ruin my whole life. And mom said, well... Honestly, sometimes I'm not so fond of you either. But I am your mother. And that's a job. Like any job, it has a job description. And one in my job description is I have to keep you safe.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
And I know more than you do about the behavior of drunk young men. And you're not going to Cancun without parents. If you're doing your job as a parent, there will be times that your kid gets really angry with you. That's part of the job. You have to do your job.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Well, here's where I really like and agree with what John Hyde says in the opening chapters of The Anxious Generation. He points out that we have been too intrusive in what kids are doing in the real world, but not intrusive enough in what kids are doing online. And I agree 100%.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
I think we need to let go and let kids do whatever they want or give them much more freedom in the real world and let eight-year-olds run around and play without adult supervision in the backyard, on the playground.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
let 10 year olds walk to the market and and get stuff at the grocery store and walk back within reasonable limits but absolutely i did that growing up in shaker heights ohio and uh you know i took the bus to downtown cleveland for my piano lesson at 10 years of age and i don't see why kids can't do that today i'm all for free range parenting absolutely
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
But I agree with John Haidt that we need to severely limit what 10-year-olds are doing online. And I think he's absolutely right there. But the other aspect that I wanted to raise that I heard you mention a moment ago was this issue of normophobia. So 15 years ago, I wrote a book called Girls on the Edge.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Because back then, again, as a family doctor, you kind of get to see these things before they get written about. And I saw back then and wrote about it. how social media was causing a rising anxiety and depression.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
And I was very honored that Caitlin Flanagan at the Atlantic back then wrote how my book, Girls on the Edge was the best book about what's going on with girls and young women in America. Because I'm proud to say I was kind of ahead of the curve there because I was seeing it as a family doctor before we had all the studies.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Back then, when I wrote that first edition of Girls on the Edge, I was seeing many girls who wanted to be effortlessly perfect. That was a thing back then. So the publisher asked me to write a second edition of Girls on the Edge, and I did. And I systematically interviewed a lot of girls and young women for that. But I found that things have really changed.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Girls today don't want to be effortlessly perfect anymore. That's really not a thing. Effortlessly perfect today, that would be boring. That would be basic white bitch. That's not interesting. You got to have a thing. You got to have something to talk about. Anxious, depressed, that's good. You don't want to be basic white bitch. That is lame. That is boring.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Yeah. And the terminology that kids are teaching each other on social media, are you neurotypical or are you neurodivergent? Are you gender conforming or are you gender non-conforming? Well, who wants to be conforming and typical? Conforming and typical are boring. What's neurotypical or neuro... What does that even mean? Neurodivergent means you're on the spectrum, okay? Or you have ADHD.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Neurotypical means you're normal, but normal is boring. You don't want to be boring. Neurotypical... So... Normal has become boring. It's become typical. It's become conforming. These are the terms that the kids teach each other to use. Neurotypical versus neurodivergent. Gender conforming versus gender non-conforming.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
And so Mary Harrington recently coined this term normophobia to describe how Anglophone kids, English-speaking kids, are reluctant to be normal. They've got to have something to talk about, to be their brand, that I'm neurodivergent, that I'm gender nonconforming, that I'm really struggling. Because otherwise you are basic white bitch and you are lame and you are boring.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
You know, 70 years ago, C.S. Lewis wrote a children's book called The Magician's Nephew, in which he said that the problem with trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed. Substitute anxious or depressed. And you start to understand what is going on in the English-speaking world.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Now, John Haidt and I both are PhD graduates of the University of Pennsylvania Department of Psychology, which is where Aaron Beck ruled. Okay, so Aaron Beck is University of Pennsylvania. Aaron Beck created cognitive behavioral therapy. Cognitive behavioral therapy basically is that you think yourself into depression. You think yourself into anxiety. The way you think determines how you feel.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
The problem with trying to make yourself more anxious than you really are is that you become more anxious than you really are. speaking culture has become a culture of normophobia. It's become a culture where being normal is lame, is boring, is uncool. And parents don't understand this.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
On the contrary, parents who read the New York Times or listen to National Public Radio have been taught that, hey, good parents validate their kids' feelings. And a kid comes home from school and they're like, oh, everybody else got invited to Emily's party and I wasn't invited. And I'm really sad. And I was like, oh, I feel for you. I hear what you're saying. And I feel so bad.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Oh, that's so sad. Whereas in fact, the role of the parent is to be an agent of reality and say, who the heck is Emily? I've never heard of Emily. Emily's not a friend of yours. Why do you care whether she invites you to her party? You've never mentioned Emily ever. Okay, a week from Saturday, great. Let's you and me go on the bike trail. Walk it off.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Whether or not you're invited to the party of kids you don't even know is not that important. Help your kid to put things in perspective. Getting invited to a birthday party of a kid you don't know is not that important. This is the role of the parent, to put things in perspective, not to validate every feeling your kid has.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Yeah, so that's the work of Sunia Luthar and she's the leading scholar in that. So let's talk a little bit about her work. So Sunia Luthar was doing these studies. So let's go way back. So back when I was earning my doctorate at University of Pennsylvania in psychology, we're talking about the early 80s, there were all these studies showing that
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Kids who were in low-income communities were more likely to be anxious and depressed and struggling compared to kids from more affluent communities. And so Sunil Luthar was doing a big study, and she noticed that, huh, that doesn't seem to be true anymore. In fact, the reverse now seems to be true.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
She was the first scholar, she was then at Columbia, who found that, you know what, that finding that was so robust in the United States in the early and mid-20th century seems to have flipped. It is now the case that kids from affluent communities are actually more likely to be anxious and depressed than kids from low-income communities.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
And other scholars pounced on this and replicated it, and it turned out to be a pretty robust finding. And other scholars coined the term affluenza to describe this finding that affluent kids are now more likely to be anxious and depressed than low-income kids. But then more recently, she went back and did a more granular look at the data. And she found that it isn't actually income per se.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
It's what kind of school the kid is attending. Kids who are attending high-performing schools are the kids who are at greatest risk. So a kid from a low-income household who gets a scholarship to go to a high-achieving school is at risk, whereas a kid from an affluent home who's going to a school that's not high-achieving is not at risk. Well, this is weird.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Attending a high achieving school, a school that boasts that all of our kids go to Ivy League schools or Stanford or MIT or whatever, attending such a school greatly increases the risk of being anxious and depressed. Yeah, it does actually. Why is that? Well, Sunil Luthar asserts that the mechanism is social comparison. That when kids are comparing themselves to other kids,
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
they become anxious and depressed. So the worst thing you can do with your kid is to say, whoa, look at Melissa. She was accepted to Stanford and Princeton and she started her own nonprofit and she got a five on the AP Physics exam. Wow, you got to try and be like Melissa. That's the worst thing you can tell your child. You don't want to be comparing your kid to others. That's not a good strategy.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
You want your kid to focus on being the best that she can be. But comparing your kid to other kids is a major risk factor for anxiety and depression. That's what we learned from the work of Sunil Luthar and other scholars.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
So indeed, in my book, The Collapse of Parenting, I ask the reader, what predicts success at 12 years of age or 15 years of age or at 18 years of age? Is it your grade point average? Is it how popular you are? Is it emotional stability? Is it self-control? One of those predicts health, wealth, and happiness 20 years later, but only one of those. The other three do not.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
It's self-control and other measures of conscientiousness like honesty. Grade point average doesn't. And a lot of parents actually are aware of that. And I know this because when I do the presentations, that's the first question I ask. And nobody raises their hand for grade point average.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
They all have heard that grade point average does not predict health, wealth, and happiness 20 years down the road. They know that in their heads, but they don't know it in their hearts. Because I can tell you as a family doctor, when that ninth grader starts getting B's and C's, they're bringing the kid into the office. And they're saying, what do you think? Should we start Adderall, Vyvanse?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
You know, what's going on? You know, ADD? You know, what's going on? They act as if grade point average is the most important thing. But the evidence is clear. Conscientiousness, meaning honesty and self-control, Strongly predict health, wealth, and happiness 20, 30 years down the road. Grade point average and popularity and emotional stability do not.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
So it follows that your top priority as a parent is to teach your kid to be honest and self-controlled.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Now that's a wonderful question and it very often comes up. What's the difference between self-control and emotional stability? Yeah. Emotional stability is what's going on inside. Self-control is about what you do. It's about your behavior. And it's actually very encouraging and reassuring. You can be a mess in here as long as you just govern what you do, as long as you control your behavior.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
You also, well, you have your- Incidentally, that's the same program that John Haidt graduated from, is a curious point. We know many of the same people. And I want to emphasize, I have great regard for John Haidt, and he was kind enough to send me an advanced reading copy of his book before it came out.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
If you're all mixed up inside, that's okay. You don't have to have it together in here as long as you control your behavior. Control your behavior, self-control. You don't have to be a Zen master. You just have to govern yourself.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
No dessert until you eat your vegetables. No video games until all the chores are done and all the homework is done. No TV in the bedroom. No screens in the bedroom. And if that hasn't been the rule in your home, I encourage you to make it the rule in your home. If that hasn't been the rule in your home, sit down with your kids and say, hey, we've been doing some things wrong.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
We're going to make some changes. If that hasn't been the rule in your home and you make that announcement, there will be an explosion. And the older the child, the longer and louder the explosion. But if both parents stand their ground, emphasizing the word both, after six weeks, you will have a child with better self-control. Not after one week. The first week is pretty tough.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
But after six weeks, you will have a child with better self-control and usually a happier child as well.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Yeah, I've written a lot about this because I see it. And again, one of the unusual features in my background is I'm both a medical doctor, MD, but I also have a PhD in psychology. This is actually how I got into this because a lot of parents would bring their kids to me because I can do the assessment and also prescribe the medication.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
And I think the book is very useful, but there's one key point that he doesn't mention anywhere in the book. And that is that this surge in anxiety and depression, that is quite rightly a focus of his concern, is not seen outside the English-speaking world. Kids in Greece, kids in Russia are just as likely to have smartphones as kids in England and the United States and Canada and Australia.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
psychologists can do the assessment but a phd psychologist as a role cannot prescribe the medication but i can and on so many occasions i've been in the situation of saying to the parents look uh justin does not meet criteria for attention deficit disorder And the parents will say, yeah, but the other doctor prescribed Vyvanse, and it was so helpful.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
You know, I spoke at Harvard at a conference titled Learning and the Brain. And I would love to tell you that my presentation was the buzz of the conference. It wasn't. The presentation that everybody was really excited about was a presentation by Dr. Gabriele from MIT. Dr. Gabrielli somehow got permission to give Adderall, a stimulant medication for ADD.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
He got permission to give Adderall to normal kids, kids without ADHD, and to withhold medication for kids who had severe ADHD. And then to study how kids with and without ADHD learned on and off medication. And he found that medication helps normal kids more than it helps kids with ADHD.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
That's a tremendously important finding because for decades, the pharmaceutical industry has been telling us that these medications are specific, that they only help kids with ADHD. That was a lie. They never had any evidence for that. And studies like Dr. Gabrielli's blows that to smithereens. These medications help normal kids as much or more than they help kids with ADHD.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Okay, so these medications help everybody. They help everybody to concentrate and focus. They boost energy. They compensate for the sleep deprivation. What's not to like? Why not just put all the kids on medication?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Well, the problem is we now have many studies, 18 studies to be precise, showing that these medications, Adderall, Vyvanse, Concertant, Medidate, Focal, and Adetrona, damage the motivational center of the brain, the nucleus accumbens. That's a pretty serious concern. And they are often overprescribed or unnecessary. So another story from my own practice.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Boy is off the chart on the counter scale, not paying attention in any of his classes. Parents take him to the child psychiatrist. He says, You know, absolutely meets criteria. Let's go ahead and prescribe Vyvanse, which is tremendously helpful for this boy. But now he's getting jittery and has palpitations, no appetite, losing weight.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Parents saw an article I wrote for the New York Times about the dangers of the medication. So they bring them to me for a second opinion. And I do a careful sleep history. I asked the parents, does he get a good night's sleep? Mom says, oh, absolutely. We make sure he's in his bedroom every night at nine o'clock. We wake him up next morning at 6 a.m. That's nine hours. That's enough, isn't it?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
I was like, you were playing video game till two in the morning? Is that pretty typical? Yeah, it's pretty typical. Mom's like, you play video games till two in the morning? He's playing video games after midnight most nights. He's playing video games till one or two in the morning. He's planning to get up at six. He's sleep deprived.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Sleep deprivation perfectly mimics ADHD of the inattentive variety. There is no counter scale. There is no Vanderbilt interview that can distinguish ADHD of the inattentive variety from sleep deprivation. By Vance, Adderall, tremendously helpful. What's Vyvanse? What's Adderall? They're amphetamines. They compensate for the sleep deprivation. They're speed.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
But the appropriate remedy for sleep deprivation is sleep, not schedule two amphetamines. And this was a board-certified and experienced child psychiatrist who misdiagnosed this kid. This kid doesn't have ADHD. This kid should never have been put on medication. You get the video game console out of the bedroom and this kid is fine, off medication, doesn't need to be on medication.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
And I see this all the time. This is epidemic across the United States. I wrote a book for a French publisher. It's basically my book, Boys Adrift and Girls on the Edge, combined into one, because we were able to throw out chapters, including the chapter on ADHD. Turned out working with French colleagues, I learned that in all of France, there are fewer than 6,000 kids on medication for ADHD.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
In all of France, a nation of 67 million people. There are more kids in Los Angeles on medications for ADHD than there are in all of France. Because in France, medication is the last resort. In the United States, medication is the first resort. Let's try Adderall and see if it helps. You have to be the jealous advocate for your kid.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
But there has been no rise in anxiety and depression among kids in Greece and kids in Russia. Now, I'm not holding up Russia as a role model by any means, but we have to ask, What's going on in the English speaking world that kids in the English speaking world are showing this enormous surge in anxiety and depression, but kids in Greece and Russia are not.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
If a doctor recommends medication for your kid, you have to say to your kid, doctor, are you aware of the 18 studies showing that these medications may damage the nucleus accumbens? I can promise you in the United States, the doctor is not aware. Outside of the United States, the doctors know about this. In this country, they don't. I own the copyright to Boys Adrift.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Give the doctor your copy of Boys Adrift. Ask the doctor to read chapters four and eight with the scholarly citations. Doctors can only practice wisely if they know the risks of the medications they're prescribing in this country. They don't know. We can talk about how the pharmaceutical industry has influenced the practice of medicine.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
The United States has especially profound in psychiatry and the prescribing of psychiatric medications. You've got to be the advocate for your kid. A kid in the United States is 14 times more likely to be on medication for ADHD compared to a kid in the United Kingdom. And a kid in the United Kingdom is many times more likely to be on medication compared to a kid in France.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
You know, the original title of the collapse of The title of the book I sent to the publisher was The Collapse of American Parenting. And the subtitle was Why Most Kids Would Be Better Off Raised Outside North America. And I was leaning heavily on the fact that American kids are many times more likely to be on psychiatric medications compared to kids outside North America.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
But if you're not a celebrity, you don't get to choose your title. And the publisher nixed it. But it is a fact that American kids are now many times more likely to be on psychiatric medications than kids outside North America.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Yes. Canada is drifting more and more to the United States in that parameter.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Well, and it's normal to feel anxious. And at what point does that anxious feeling... Because after all, adolescence... You don't know what you're going to do with your life. You don't know who your life partner is going to be. You don't know where you're going to college or even if you're going to go to college. It's normal to feel anxious about those things. And we have pathologized
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
A lot of the normal anxiety of adolescence. So that girl, that boy who's understandably anxious because they don't know what they're going to do. They don't know where they're going to go. They don't know who their partner is going to be. All normal sources of anxiety now in adolescence.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
American culture, it's very easy for parents to think, oh, my kid's anxious, so they should be on a medication for their anxiety. Well, no, they probably shouldn't. And outside the United States, they wouldn't be. I don't talk about that as much, though, because the evidence is simply not there. The dangers of of Lexapro are simply not as great as the dangers of Adderall, Vyvanse.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Adderall and Vyvanse, the evidence is very clear that they damage the motivational center of the brain. We can talk about the dangers of Lexapro and the other serotonin SSRIs, and I do have concerns about them, but they're not as profound as the concerns that I have about Adderall, Vyvanse, Concerta, Metadate, Focal, and Detrona.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
And that's the key point that John Haidt has not addressed. And that's the point that I'm trying to call attention to.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
So I really had a fight with the publisher of my book, Boys Adrift. So Boys Adrift has two chapters, chapters four and eight, that are a deep dive into ADHD. What are the five criteria for the diagnosis of ADHD? And what should you do if your kid's not paying attention in class? And what strategies can you deploy? And my publisher didn't like it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
They said, Dr. Sachs, are you seriously suggesting that a parent, after reading your one book, is qualified to question the judgment of an experienced, board-certified child psychiatrist with years of experience? I said, absolutely. Absolutely. I said, not only that, they have to, because who else is going to push back when the psychiatrist recommends medication?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
And so our compromise was there is a disclaimer at the front of the book that says, this book offers general guidance only. It shouldn't be a substitute for a recommendation made by your And in particular, you shouldn't stop medication without consulting your healthcare professional, because the publisher didn't want to get sued.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Well, I think there's more than one. I think there's multiple things that have happened over the last 20 years. One is the breaking of bonds across generations. And again, this is a point where we have good data. We don't have to guess. Kids in the United States hang out with other kids their own age. The bonds across generations have been broken. This is much less true in Greece.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
But I do offer very detailed guidance regarding ADHD in my book, Boys Adrift, for a parent who really wants a step-by-step guide about the diagnosis and management process. an evaluation of the child who's not paying attention in school, which is most more often a boy than a girl, but it could be a girl and it can be a girl. And I've advised many families of daughters as well as sons.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
But I'll tell you one thing, start with sleep because a lot of boys are staying up past midnight playing video games. A lot of girls are staying up past midnight strolling through Instagram and TikTok. And there is no way you can pay attention in school and learn Spanish grammar and algebra if you are sleep deprived. No screens in the bedroom.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
And nine o'clock at night at the very latest, you're taking the device from your kid and you're turning it off and you're putting it in the charger, which is going to stay in the parent's bedroom. This has to be the parent's job. And a lot of parents push back and they're like, no, no, no, no, no. Come on. My daughter would totally freak out if I take her phone.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
I say, look, it is not reasonable to put this decision, whether or not to have a phone in the bedroom, in the lap of your 14-year-old daughter. What is she supposed to say tomorrow in school when her friend says, hey, I texted you last night at midnight. I texted you last night at midnight. How come you didn't answer?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Is your 14-year-old daughter supposed to say, well, researchers have found that sleep deprivation in adolescence is a major risk factor in the etiology of anxiety and depression? That's ridiculous. You can't expect her to say that. You got to allow her to say, hey, my evil parents take my phone every night at nine. We'll let it back the next morning. This has to be the parent's call.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
You've got to take your phone from your daughter every night and turn it off and put it in the charger. That's your job as a parent.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
With regard to ADHD?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Second thing is you have to look at the school. Very often, and I got blacklisted. I have been blacklisted by a number of schools because I have gone into the school as part of my evaluation. And sometimes I have found that the problem is not in the kid, but in the school. Sometimes you've got schools that are just deadly dull.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
And the kid's not paying attention because I wouldn't pay attention because the instruction is deadly boring. And I have had firsthand experience with more than 100 kids
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
more than 100 kids firsthand in my years of practice where this kid was on medication at school A and off medication at school B because the teachers at school A are deadly dull and the teachers at school B are exciting and alive and running around the classroom and jumping up on the desk and fun and funny. And sometimes the problem is not in your kid, but in the school.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
So you have to be alive to that and consider switching schools.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
I've seen it firsthand.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
It is much less true in Russia. And it's much less true outside the English-speaking world generally. I have good friends in Germany and in German-speaking Switzerland. And I can tell you that in Middle Europe and all throughout Central Europe, and I'm told also in Eastern Europe, kids hang out with grown-ups in their free time. This is not true in the United States.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
In my book, The Collapse of Parenting, I have a chapter on... food. In 1971, 4% of American kids were obese. Today, 20% of American kids are obese. So basically a five-fold increase. Why did that happen? There's a bunch of reasons why that happened. And I go into different things that have happened, but in just the few minutes we have remaining, I just want to focus on one thing that happened.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
And that's what kids eat. 50 years ago, parents chose what kids ate. But increasingly, parents let kids decide what kids eat. So I was speaking to parents in Chappaqua, New York, and husband and wife told me how husband and wife had prepared a healthy and nutritious supper. And their son and daughter came home and said, oh, yeah, we don't want to eat that. We just ordered pizza.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
So dad got out his phone and pulled up the Domino's Pizza app and the son dictated his order for his personal pizza and the daughter dictated her order for her personal pizza. And I asked dad, why'd you do that? Why don't you just tell them this is what's for supper? If you don't like it, you can go to bed hungry. And dad said, I don't believe in using starvation as a means of discipline.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
I said, they're not going to starve. But 50 years ago, if mom made a healthy and nutritious supper and the kids didn't want it, she would not run out and buy them a pizza. She would say, this is what's for supper. That's right. If you don't like it, you can go to bed hungry.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
If you let 12-year-olds decide what's for supper, there are some 12-year-olds who will choose broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, spinach, asparagus, and kale. But there are other 12-year-olds who will insist on pizza, french fries, potato chips, and ice cream. If you let kids decide what's for supper, you're going to get more fat kids. That's part of what's going on.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
It's not the whole story. It is not. And I go into other factors in play, but it's part of what's going on. This is why kids, this is one part of why kids have parents. Parents need to decide what's for supper. They should not be letting kids decide what's for supper. And one of the motivations I had for writing the book is to empower parents to make the call.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Parents, you need to decide what's for supper. Your kids don't get to decide what's for supper.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Activity is the second one and sleep is the third one. Kids are getting less sleep. And we now understand that sleep is fundamental to not only to good health, but to good weight. If you get less sleep, you end up eating more and you throw your metabolism out of alignment. It's kind of counterintuitive, but getting insufficient sleep is a major risk factor for being overweight.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
You've got to get the right amount of sleep If you are sleep deprived, you're more likely to be overweight.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Yeah, eating too much of the wrong things. There you go.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Kids in the United States very seldom spend their free time hanging out with adults. They used to in living memory, but they no longer do. The great majority of American kids now hang out with other kids their own age, and actually not so much in person anymore, but online. And I think John Hyde is very right to be concerned about
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Well, I also want to put in a plug for the audio book for the first time ever. The publisher allowed me to read the book and a very... A very dictatorial Israeli who lives in Santa Monica was the producer, and it was 20 hours to produce a 10-hour audiobook, but it's actually doing much better than the hard copy, so people must like it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
They're all on audio books, but they wouldn't let me read them. They didn't like my voice.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Thank you.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Very good. That'd be great.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
All right. Bye-bye.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
And his colleague, Gene Twenge, who he collaborates with very closely on this. Gene Twenge, of course, has done the lion's share of the work documenting that American kids used to hang out with other kids in person 20 years ago, and they no longer do. Now they hang out online. And that's a real problem. And it's much less true outside the English-speaking world.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
So we have to do more than just lock down the smartphones. We have to offer a healthier culture. We have to restore the bonds across generations.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
So that's absolutely right. The impetus for the book comes from my own experience as a family doctor and what I'm seeing in the office. And I actually wrote about this for the Wall Street Journal. Mom brings her son into the office and mom is doing all the talking. Kid is looking at his smartphone, playing a video game actually on his phone.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
And mom is telling me how her son has a tummy ache and he hasn't been feeling well. And the son just puts his phone down and very nonchalantly says, you don't know what the F you're talking about. And mom gives me this limp smile. That didn't happen 20 years ago. It would have been unthinkable for a 12-year-old boy to use the F word to his mother. But now it happens.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
And where is that coming from? So here you have to go just beyond anecdotes and experiences in the office. A team at UCLA looked at the most popular TV shows targeting children and teens going back to 1967 and looking every 10 years from 1967 through 2017. And they quantified the shows on 16 different parameters. What are the shows teaching?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Looking at the most popular TV shows, like the Andy Griffith Show in 1967, or Happy Days in 1977, or Family Ties in 1987, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 1997. Those are very different shows, very different production values, but they found great consistency, 1967 through 1997.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
All those shows they found are teaching kids the most important thing is to do the right thing, to tell the truth, even if it hurts, to be a good friend, even when that's not easy. Being famous, number 15 or number 16, throughout that entire interval. But then they found that between 1997 and 2007, American culture flipped upside down.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
And suddenly being famous, winning, went from number 15 to number one. between 1997 and 2007, and doing the right thing, dropped from number one to number 13 in 10 years. American culture flipped upside down and it's gotten only worse since 2007. And what drove that change? The UCLA researchers asked, and the answer they gave is social media.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Social media, they believe, transformed American culture to suddenly what really mattered is likes and followers. Doing the right thing, that's going to get you voted off the island. Survivor and iCarly and American Idol were the three most popular shows in 2007 that they looked at. And on all three of those shows, winning and being famous and having lots of followers is what really matters.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
So American culture did change and being famous is what's important. And another mom in my own practice asked me about her eight-year-old son. She said, he's become so defiant and so disrespectful and he talks back. And I don't know where he's getting this from because his father and I never talked like that. And I said, does he watch... at Disney, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
And she said, well, of course. I said, lock it down, turn it off. He's learning it from those shows. And three weeks later, mom called me and she said, it stopped. You're right. He's learning it. And shows like Dog with a Blog and Liv and Maddie, these Disney Channel shows teach kids that it's cute and funny to be disrespectful to adults. They are vectors of what I call the culture of disrespect.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Jessie, yes. Jessie's another one.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Yeah. Well, and I want to emphasize is not just Disney. It's the whole weight of American popular culture. I mean, Lil Nas X had a huge hit 12 weeks at number one on the Billboard Top 100. His old old town road where he sings, You Can't Tell Me Nothing. can't nobody tell me nothing. This number one hit song, most popular song in the United States, he's saying, you can't tell me nothing.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Well, if you can't tell me nothing, you know, why go to school? Why listen to grownups? You can't tell me nothing. Can't nobody tell me nothing. You know, Bill Maher had a big bestseller this last year, and he observed that one of the fundamental truths of the human experience is that young people are beautiful but stupid, and old people are ugly and but more likely to be wise.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
So Bullmeyer says that any successful human culture will connect the beautiful young people with the ugly old people. You can't tell me nothing. Can't nobody tell me nothing. The culture of disrespect is summed up in that line from that number one song. You can't tell me nothing. Can't nobody tell me nothing. The culture of disrespect breaks the bonds across generations.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
If you can't tell me nothing, why should I listen to grandpa? He's got nothing to teach me. You can't tell me nothing. So you have to mindfully and intentionally create a different culture in your home, in your extended family. You have to think carefully about the weekend. What are we doing this weekend? What activities are we going to do? How am I going to connect my kids to other adults?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Do I have a community of faith? Does that community of faith connect kids to adults and not just to other kids? And again, I do workshops for synagogues and for churches to say, look, your kid doesn't need a youth group where they eat pizza with other 12 year olds. They need connections with adults to learn about traditions of the faith. And some synagogues and some churches are doing this.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Most are not. They don't understand what their role is, which is to build bonds across generations.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Well, I'm always uncomfortable with the word discipline because people think that the book is about discipline and it isn't. And, you know, parenting is easy when there's love and And there's a chapter in the book titled Joy, which is about finding the joy, doing fun things together with your kid.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
Because if there's love, then parenting is easy because your kid wants to please you and they don't want to disappoint you. They don't want to let you down.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 417: Dr. Leonard Sax: The Collapse of Parenting and the Rise of Childhood Anxiety and Depression
okay so parental authority means that your kid cares what you think and that they look to you for guidance about what is important and that's fundamental that's essential. And this is where parents are confused. And this is my big concern. This is where the impetus for writing the new edition came from. Because 10 years ago, gentle parenting wasn't a thing.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Yes, absolutely. I think it's such an illuminating story. And I've seen this so much in my own practice as a family doctor now for more than 30 years. so many boys want to be heroes. They want to be seen as heroes. They want to see themselves as heroes in their own eyes. You know, I spoke some years ago at a conference on juvenile justice, statewide conference in New Mexico.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And the topic was Boys Adrift, the title of one of my books. And after my presentation, they had a panel of four experts from across the state. And one was Judge John Romero, who's the chief of the juvenile judges in Albuquerque. And he said when he first began doing this work as a juvenile judge in Albuquerque, he was puzzled because all these teenage boys
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
you know, good men with great potential being accused of these horrible, violent crimes. And he would take them into his chambers and say, why are you doing this? Don't you understand? You're going to go to jail for decades. Why are you throwing your life away? And he told us it took him a long time to understand these boys want to be heroes. And the school doesn't understand that.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
But the gang understands it. The gang says, here's a gun. Go and shoot the rival gang leader. And if you succeed, you're a hero. If you get killed trying, you're a hero. If you get thrown in jail, you're a hero. If you chicken out, you're a wuss. And then he looked right at us and he said, most of you, you're not from the barrio. And you're thinking, oh, I'm doing great.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
My son's not gonna be in the juvenile justice system. He said, but your son is no different. The difference between your son and the boys I see, your son is staying at home in his bedroom playing his video games.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
The difference between your son and the boys in my chambers is your son is playing with pretend guns in his video game, but it's the same dynamic, playing with pretend guns, being a pretend hero in his Call of Duty and his Grand Theft Auto. In both cases, though, your son has left the real world in his fantasy world, wanting to be a hero in his own mind.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And that's the same thing that's going on here. We have failed as a society to capture these boys, to give them better models, better ways to become a hero, to be a hero in the right way. And again, that's going back to my book, Boys Adrift, where I talk about good Romans, men like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who gave his life for the right cause.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a pastor, had a comfortable job preaching in New Jersey in 1938, and left that job, went back to Nazi Germany, put his life in jail. in jeopardy and joined the conspiracy to take the life of Adolf Hitler and was caught and was executed in concentration camp, that's a good man. That's a role model. We're failing at the job of inspiring boys to be the right kind of hero.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Okay, I've written about school shooters, and that's a different process in place. There's always been a small minority of boys who take pleasure in killing, take pleasure in inflicting pain. And I wrote an article about this for a magazine called First Things. I called it the unspeakable pleasure. And that's a minority of boys. That's rare, but it happens. And again, that's not insanity, right?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
That's a variation on human nature. It's always been with us. But again, we need to know how to capture these boys. We have the game of football. Hey, there's always been boys who enjoy inflicting pain. In pain, have them play the line. And I was doing this talk at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. And and it happened that my host used to play the line for University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And I called out to him and I said, do you have any comments about that? And he said, a good hit is better than sex. Healthy cultures know how to capture boys and channel those instincts into healthy channels. It's not insanity. The insanity plea in that case is a cop-out.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Okay, there are people who truly have psychotic disorders, and they hear voices telling them that this person is a lion who's going to eat them and they have to shoot them. That's not what's going on here. That's not what's going on with Luigi Mangione, and that's not what's going on with school shooters. Some inventive lawyers try to make that case. It's unpersuasive.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
We're not talking here about psychotic disorders and schizophrenics. We're talking about here about boys who have evil impulses. There's nothing new about this. This is as old as Genesis chapter 4. Sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must master it. Genesis chapter 4.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
You know, I have learned the hard way. It's very hard to speculate about what went under the roof at home. We do know, we all know, that he graduated from a secular high school, a school with no religious affiliation. And the culture has changed. You know, 30 years ago, American popular culture taught right and wrong. We know this. This is not a guess.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
We have scholars who have looked at American popular culture The most popular TV shows, 1967, 77, 87, 97, were shows like The Andy Griffith Show, Family Ties, Happy Days, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Researchers have looked at these shows, and they found that they consistently taught that the most important thing is to do the right thing to tell the truth. right through 1997.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
But by 2007, they found American culture had flipped upside down. And the most important thing in the shows that teenagers watching in 2007 was not to do the right thing. It was to win and shows like American idol, uh, and, and, um, survivor. The most important thing is to win. Doing the right thing, that's going to get you voted off the island.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
So American popular culture, beginning in the early 2000s, was no longer about doing the right thing. It's about winning and becoming famous. So American culture is now a post-Christian culture. It's no longer a culture in which doing the right thing is taught. And so, you know, 30 years ago, it wasn't so important to go to a school that taught Judaism or Christianity. Now it is.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
You know, I attended public schools in Ohio K through 12. But today, I think it's more important that you enroll your kid in a school that has a firm moral foundation. And I can tell you many horror stories about public schools that don't and independent schools that don't.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And what we do know about Luigi Mangione is that he went to a secular independent school, the Gilman School, which has no religious affiliation. And Now I am speculating, but you go to a secular independent school, they're not teaching the Ten Commandments. They're not teaching do unto others as you have them do unto you. And boys are adrift.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
If you don't have that firm foundation, where do you find?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Yes.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Boys are adrift and they're looking for what does it mean to be a man? And you go online and what do you find? You find Andrew Tate. And that's really scary.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
So you have to prioritize the family and you cannot... find your child's meaning of life, but you can prioritize that connection. And one of the challenges for kids is that they are looking for life meaning in all the wrong places. They're, they're looking at Instagram and Tik TOK and Charlie D Emilio, uh, who is this hugely popular person on, on Tik TOK. And, uh, the,
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
One in three 12-year-olds now says that their goal in life is to be the next Charlie, to be a TikTok influencer. And that's not a good goal. It's not a good goal because it's not going to happen. And I have met with so many girls who are frustrated because they put all this effort into a TikTok video and it fizzles. They don't understand the numbers.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
They don't understand that there's 10 million other girls out there who are posting videos and it's not going to happen. And if your meaning of life is on how many clicks you get on your video, you're going to be frustrated. You're going to be disappointed. You need to find your meaning of life in who you are, not in how many likes you get or how many views or how many followers you have.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And so that begins with the family. So you prioritize the family. You, uh, You have family dinners. You fight for dinners at home. And again, many parents are confused and they're driving their kids around to play dates or they're driving their kids to travel team soccer or computer coding class. Cancel the computer coding class. Prioritize family time at home.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Prioritize the parent-child relationship. And then the rest will follow once you have the strong family relationships.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
I would say I would come back to the central point. Key point that I try to make in the new edition of my book, The Collapse of Parenting, which is that central paradox of American parenting right now, which is that parents are spending more time and more money on their kids than parents have ever done before. But the results are worse than they have ever been.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
American kids are more likely to be anxious and depressed than they have ever been. They are in worse shape physically than they have ever been. They are less fit than they have ever been. They are heavier than they have ever been. So bluntly, American parents are doing it all wrong because American parents are really confused. They've got the priorities all mixed up.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
They think that it's really important for kids to have friends who are their own age. It's not that important. It is not that important. We know this. Whether or not your five-year-old or your 10-year-old has a lot of other friends their own age is not important. It's not. It's not a predictor of good health. It's not a predictor of happiness.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
What predicts health and happiness for your five-year-old, for your 10-year-old? The parent-child relationship is the most important thing. It is. We know this. The data is there. So your first priority is should not be driving your kid around to play dates. Your first priority should be building the parent-child relationship.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
So one of my presentations for parents of young kids is titled, Cancel the Play Date, Make a Family Date Instead. On that Saturday, those precious hours on a Saturday when you actually have some time, don't drive your kid to a play date. Do something fun with your kid.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Go somewhere with your kid, just you and your kid, not driving them to a play date, but doing something fun with your kid because the quality of the parent-child relationship is the most important predictor of your kid's health and happiness. So focus on that. Don't drive your kid to a play date.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Okay. This is where, again, a lot of parents are confused. They expect their teenager to push them away and they think that's fine. And they, they assume that the parent child relationship is less important for teenagers. And it's not, it's more important. And again, Parents are like, oh, you know, well, I really believe in privacy, so I'm not going to monitor what my kid is doing online.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Huge mistake, huge mistake. We've got girls who are sending selfies to boys that they don't even know, and the parent is not aware of this, and it has life-changing bad consequences for girls. You've got to put parental monitoring software on your teenager's phone and say, look, this app is going to see every photograph you take before you even do anything with it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And if there's anything inappropriate, it's going to pop up on my phone. And if you do anything inappropriate, you're going to lose your device indefinitely. So one of the stories I share. 12-year-old girl had a 14-year-old boyfriend. He asked her to send him some photos, nothing obscene, just wanted to see her take off her school uniform, blouse, and kilt to reveal bra and panties.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Of course, she knew her parents would not allow this. So she goes into her bedroom, closes the door, locks the door and does as he acts and, and sends the photographs using Snapchat. Now Snapchat claims you can send a photo using a five second self-destruct. And after the recipient has seen the photo for five seconds, it will vanish. And if they try to save the photo, uh,
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
using a screenshot you the sender will be notified snapchat is lying they know that there's dozens of free apps out there that will save the photo and the sender will not be notified the boy of course had installed one of these apps and he saved all the photos school administrators later determined that he didn't intend for anyone else to see the photos but he was at a party and he set his phone down to grab some chips and talk to some friends another boy came along that lock screen had not engaged found the phone
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
went to the gallery, found the photos, forwarded each of the girls' photos to his own phone, posted each of the photos on his own Instagram. Within three days, everybody at the school had seen them. Boys, this girl didn't even know were coming up to her and say, hey, Emily, how about you do a striptease for us? This girl had a total meltdown. She'd never had any problems before.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
She'd been invited to a three-day ski weekend. The girl, the birthday girl whose parents were hosting the ski weekend, the birthday girl called this girl and said, you know, I hate to make this phone call, but my mom is totally freaking out because all the other moms are freaking out.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And they're all saying that they won't let their daughter come if you're going to be there because they all think you're now some kind of bad influence. So I have to uninvite you. I'm really sorry. I have to uninvite you. Girl totally melted down, refusing to go to school, saying her life was over, that the photos would always be out there, which is totally true, incidentally.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
The school administrators made this boy take them down, but by that time, 20 other boys had picked up the photos and reposted them. I'm told they're still out there. Started cutting herself with razor blades, saying she wanted to die. The parents took her to the doctor. Doctor diagnosed depression, prescribed Lexapro, 10 milligrams, and arranged for urgent psychotherapy that accomplished nothing.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
So you now have a 12 year old girl with depression, not responding to medication or psychotherapy. Who's at fault? The girl, her boyfriend, the other boy, the parents are to blame. Look, This is a very grown-up device. With this device, I can take a photo and send a photo. And once I send that photo, I have no control over what happens to it, over who sees it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
If you're going to put a device like this in the hands of a child, then you are responsible for every photo they take and everyone who sees it. You must install parental monitoring software if you're going to give a device to a child under 18. And explain to your kid, The app is going to see every photo you take as soon as you take it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
If it's anything inappropriate, it's going to pop up on my photo. You're going to lose the device indefinitely. And parents will push back. Parents will say, look, I believe in privacy. I don't want to see my kid's photo. She don't want to see my photo. If she don't want me to see her photos, I'm fine with that. I don't want to see her photo. She don't want to see my photo.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And I say to that parent, look, privacy is great. You want to share a photo privately? Here's what you do. You print it out on a piece of photo paper. And then you take it over your friend's house and show it to them, and then you shred it. That's privacy. There is no such thing as privacy when you share a photo with a phone. And you know who didn't get the memo?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Jeff Bezos, one of the world's richest men, shared photos with his girlfriend, and they were leaked. And you know who else didn't get the memo? General David Petraeus. Same story a few years earlier. Had all of his passwords and his two-factor authentication. Thought it could not be hacked. Anything can be hacked.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
The moral of the story of Jeff Bezos and David Petraeus, don't share any photo with a device unless you're prepared for grandma to see it in the newspaper. And you don't share that by preaching that. You communicate that by saying, I've installed an app on your phone. Do not share a photo. Do not take a photo unless you're prepared for everybody to see it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And again, American parents will push back and they'll say, oh, come on, my daughter's just going to Google, how do I get around parental controls on that nanny? Well, I've actually spoken with employees at NetNanny, and they told me that they have colleagues whose full-time job is to Google the phrase, how do I get around parental controls on that nanny?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And if they find that some kid has found a hole, they patch it, usually within hours, and the app will update. you have to install parental monitoring software.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
It's one of many apps. I'm not endorsing any one app. Ethics and Public Policy Center has a wonderful online guide to the different parental monitoring apps. That's Ryan Anderson's group, Ethics and Public Policy Center. They've got a good online resource that reviews all the different parental monitoring apps. But yeah, NetNanny is one. Bark, Circle, there's a bunch of them
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
I don't endorse any one app. They're all very similar. They all give you a dashboard on your phone. They all light up if they see anything inappropriate. But you got to use one of these. You got to install one of these on your kid's phone and explain- What about, Dr. Sachs, the question of privacy?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Well, you know, there's good things and bad things about the American Academy of Pediatrics. But in this domain of this question of how you balance that question of trust versus the dangers of social media and smartphones, I think the American Academy of Pediatrics in this domain has done Some very useful work. They hired all the leading experts who spent two years reviewing all the research.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And the experts said, look, this is a new world and a new domain of immense risk and toxicity. And for girls, the risk is huge. And once those photos are out there, they will never go away. You Google this girl's name, you're still going to find those photos today. It will always be out there. And these girls don't understand the risks and you have to balance those risks.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And the experts said in the official guidelines of the American Academy of Pediatrics, quote, there should be no expectation of privacy. when a child or teenager under 18 is online. No expectation of privacy. That's the official guideline of the American Academy of Pediatrics. A device with internet access should be in a public space like the kitchen or living room.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
The American Academy of Pediatrics, which is a very left of center organization as we may get to later. They are saying- On the trans insanity in particular. Yes, trans insanity. But in this domain, They said a kid should not even have their device in their bedroom. It should be in a kitchen or living room because there should be no expectation of privacy when a kid is online.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
There's so much bad stuff out there that they should expect to have the parent.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
So my brand, if you like, is evidence-based. When I make a recommendation, I'm always going to show you a study or a series of studies. Long-term, longitudinal studies. Longitudinal cohort studies. You got it. So Jean Twenge is one of our nation's leading researchers. And back in 2019, she and her colleague Keith Campbell did a huge study, 220,000 adolescents.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And on the X axis is the time spent on social media. And on the Y axis is the likelihood of becoming anxious or depressed. And there is no rise in that trend line until you get past 30 minutes a day. So 2019, 2020, 2021, I was telling parents up to 30 minutes a day on social media is fine. But that study was published in 2019 based on research gathered in 2018. That's before TikTok.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
TikTok changed everything. So researchers who study social media talk about basically three generations of social media. So Facebook is first generation. Facebook is about connecting you to people you know or you used to know. On Facebook, you can connect with your first grade classmate, whatever.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
uh instagram is second generation so you not only connect with people you know you can connect with celebrities tick tock is third generation it's totally different so you go on tick tock and tick tock begins by saying i'm not interested in who you know i'm interested in what you like to watch tell me what kind of videos you like to watch okay uh let me show you some videos and then the algorithm is watching you and the algorithm is crazy good and it starts customizing what it's showing you
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And after an hour, you're seeing things you didn't even know were out there. And it's so common to find teenagers say, whoa, TikTok knew I was gay before I did. TikTok knew I was trans before I did. And then in 2021, researchers reached out to TikTok and said, you know, the algorithm is really dangerous. It's dragging kids, especially girls, down in this rabbit hole.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
that's valorizing anorexia and self-harm. You've got to change the algorithm. And TikTok responded and said, okay, we'll change the algorithm. And then last year, the researchers said, you didn't make it better. You made it worse. It's getting worse. And so I reached out to Gene Twenge and I said, look at the more recent studies.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
There is no safe point anymore that it's shifted left, that danger doesn't begin at 30 minutes anymore. It begins at zero time. And Jean Twain responded. She sent me back an email saying the research now supports a total ban on social media for all teens, for all children up below 18 years of age.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And, and that is, that is where I am now that the newer research in the era of tick tock no social media for any kids we can argue about whether it's 16, or whether it's 18, but the research now strongly supports no social media for any kid in the English speaking world. under 16 or 18 years of age. And that's, I mentioned the English speaking world because there's an interesting factoid here.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
You know, everyone's been talking about this rise in anxiety and depression that has occurred in the last 15 years. And John Haidt and Gene Twenge and others have talked about how, oh, it's all because of the smartphones and the social media. But one thing that John Haidt and Gene Twenge haven't talked about much is that look at Greece, look at Russia.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
You have not seen that rise in anxiety and depression in Greece and in Russia. Even though kids in Greece and Russia are just as likely to have smartphones, just as likely to have social media, they're not depressed. They're not showing the rise in anxiety and depression. Well, what's different?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Okay, I've made the argument that American popular culture has become toxic in a way that that's not true in Greece and Russia. American popular culture has changed in a way that it didn't change in Greece and Russia. American popular culture has become post-Christian in a way that has not... I'm not crowding up Russia as a role model by any means.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
But American popular culture is a post-Christian culture. It's a toxic culture of envy and disrespect in a way that maybe is not true in Greece and Russia. And I think that's important because just locking down the smartphones is not enough. We also have to offer our kids a healthier culture.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Right. So in order for parenting to work, parents have to have authority. So I actually begin the new edition with something that happened in the office just as I was writing the new edition. So mom brings her daughter in and she's sick. The six-year-old girl, mom explains her daughter has a fever and a sore throat. So after mom explains what's going on, I say, okay, time for me to take a look.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Would you please open your mouth and say, ah? And daughter shakes her head, no. And I say, okay, mom, looks like I'm gonna need your help here. Would you please ask your daughter to open wide and say, ah? And mom says, her body, her choice. Okay, my body, my choice, longtime slogan of the abortion rights community, more recently adopted by activists opposed to COVID vaccines.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Mom is using that slogan to defend her daughter's refusal to allow me, the doctor, to look in her daughter's throat. So that's an extreme example of what I mean by the collapse of parenting. parents who think it's actually virtuous to let kids decide. That's an extreme example, and that's rare. Let me give you a much more common example of what I mean by the collapse of parenting.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
So boys not paying attention in school, 13-year-old boy not paying attention in school, totally not paying attention, off the chart on what's called the Connor scales, which is The teacher's rating, this kid's not paying attention in any class. Parents take him to the child psychiatrist. Child psychiatrist says, well, attention deficit disorder. Let's try Vyvanse.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Vyvanse, medication, tremendously helpful. Boy's now doing great. But he's jittery, totally lost appetite, palpitations. Parents see this article I wrote for Time Magazine about the dangers of these medications. They bring him to me for a second opinion. And I do a more careful sleep study. I do a more careful sleep history. I asked the boy, do you have a video game console in your bedroom?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
He said, of course, doesn't everybody? I said, were you playing video games last night? He said, of course, wasn't everybody. What did you finish? Oh, like 1.30, 2. And mom's like, 1.30? You were playing video games 1.30? What were you playing? Oh, RDR2. Excellent game. All right. So I say to mom, you got to get the video game console out of his bedroom. No video game, no video games.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And you got to limit how much time he's spending playing video games. You know, max 30 minutes a night on school nights and no video games after nine o'clock at night and no video game console in the bedroom. And mom says... I couldn't take the video game console out of his bedroom. He'd totally freak out.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
This is a parent who is unwilling to limit how much time her son is spending playing video games. She is uncomfortable exercising her authority. That is very common. And that is also what I mean by the collapse of parenting. Parents who are uncomfortable exercising their authority. And as a result, this kid is not paying attention in class. He doesn't have attention deficit disorder.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
He's sleep deprived. Sleep deprivation perfectly mimics attention deficit disorder. disorder of the inattentive variety. Vyvanse was immensely helpful. What's Vyvanse? What's Adderall? They're amphetamines. They're speed. They compensate for the sleep deprivation. But the appropriate remedy for sleep deprivation is sleep, not scheduled to amphetamines.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And the psychiatrist failed to do a careful sleep history. And this is happening all the time. And I see this a lot as a family doctor, these kids who are being medicated because the parents are not doing their job. That's happening a lot.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Well, when I speak to parents, I do a lot of presentations for parents. And this is okay. I don't want to come across the wrong way. The book is not a rant against bad parents. The objective of the book is to empower the parents to exercise their authority, to encourage that parent to do the right thing, to do what you know you should do. That's what I'm trying to do there.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
So you asked about grades. So when I speak to parents, either individually or in groups, I will often say, I'll mention the longitudinal cohort study, which is a study where you follow kids from childhood through adolescence, all the way to 32, 40, 50 years of age. What characteristic of a child best predicts good outcomes at 30, 40, 50 years of age? Is it the grades that they got? No, it's not.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
It's character. It's honesty. It's self-control. So it follows from that, that our top priority as parents is not top grades. It's honesty and self-control. So good grades are great. There's nothing wrong with that. But character and self-control and honesty are more important. And you know, as a family doctor, I've seen a big change.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
20 years ago, parents were more likely to say, I'd rather you get a C on the test honestly than cheat and get an A. And that's the right thing to say. Today, I hear parents who say, hey, you want to get into top university, you've got to have amazing grades. And there has been a rise in cheating over the last 20 years, which I document.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
So you got to be very cautious about emphasizing good grades because a lot of kids are getting the wrong message. And there has been a rise in cheating among American kids over the last 20 years.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
We're losing that moral compass. Being a good person and doing the right thing, even if it hurts, is more important than winning, more important than getting a good mark. Again, that was the lesson of The Andrew Griffith Show a long, long time ago. It was the lesson of happy days and family ties. It used to be the lesson that kids would get from American television.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
It's not the lesson they get anymore. But it's a lesson that you as the parent have to teach.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Okay. How do you teach motivation? This is a real problem. And there's a lot more going on than... Cultural factors are part of it. And some of this is gender specific. So... Let's talk about boys. Testosterone levels have dropped a lot in the last 50 years and even in the last 20 years. And that's a major focus of my book, Boys Adrift. And a lot of this is due to endocrine disruptors.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And turns out that boys depend on testosterone for drive. Girls don't. And Um, so yeah, I think that is part of the story. And, you know, when I first started looking into this years ago, it sounded kind of weird and, uh,
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
But there is actually very good research, and I actually wrote a paper for the National Institutes of Health published in their scholarly journal on this topic about how plastic bottles, the kind that people drink bottled water out of, actually contain endocrine disruptors like diethylhexyl phthalate that lower testosterone levels. So your son shouldn't be drinking water out of a plastic bottle.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
You should pour tap water into a steel canteen, and that's what you want to be drinking your water out of. Don't microwave in plastic. It doesn't cost anything to follow these guidelines. And it fixes the testosterone levels. So, yeah, there's different factors that affect.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
That's why I wrote a book called Boys, called Boys Adrift, and a book for girls called Girls on the Edge, because the factors are different.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Yes. Whoa. You've really done your homework. I appreciate that.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Yeah, well, and there's been a lot of change there. The first edition of Why Gender Matters had half a paragraph on transgender, and then the publisher Penguin Random House asked me to write a new edition, which I devote a lot of time to transgender because now it's a thing.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Yes. So absolutely. So, uh, in my book, why gender matters, I remind parents that girls develop faster than boys. So if you have an older daughter, younger son, don't compare your son to your daughter. And again, from my own practice, um,
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
A parent of an 18-month-old boy said, you know, when my daughter was 18 months old, I could bounce her on my knee, and I'd say, goo-goo-ga-ga, and she'd say, goo-goo-ga-ga, and I'd say, ee-ee-oh-oh, and she'd say, ee-ee-oh-oh. And we could do that for like 20 minutes. We'd just crack each other up. We'd have so much fun just making nonsense syllables. And I tried that with my son.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And somebody was riding their bike past the front door, and he went and looked at that. And then the house made a noise and he went and looked at that. He's very distractible. And I Googled that and it said it could be a sign of autism. It could be a sign of autism. What do you think? Could it be a sign of autism? I said, well, could be, but it could also be a sign of boy.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
But I could not reassure her. And she insisted on a formal evaluation. So I said, all right, treatment and learning centers in Rockville, they're very good at play-based assessment for toddlers. I shouldn't have done that. That was a big mistake on my part. She went there and she came back in tears. She said, they're very concerned.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
They said his vocabulary is below average compared to the average 18-month-old. The average 18-month-old should have a vocabulary of 65 words. They estimate he only has a vocabulary of 40 words. Well, actually research shows the average 18-month-old girl has a vocabulary of 90 words. Average 18-month-old boy has a vocabulary of 40 words. So let's consider that statement.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
The average 18-month-old child has a vocabulary of 65 words. Okay, 90 plus 40 is 130. 135 divided by 2 is 65. The average 18-month-old child has a vocabulary of 65 words. That's a true statement, but it's completely meaningless because a child is either a boy or a girl. You've got to compare... Boys to boys and girls to girls, there's nothing wrong with this boy. And he's perfectly fine.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And this was years ago. He's gone on to be totally fine. He does not have autism. He's not on the spectrum. So, yeah, if you have an older daughter, younger son, don't compare your son to your daughter. Compare boys to boys and girls to girls.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
he thinks it's too much toxic overload you have a different possibility that we should be considering for the explosion in autism over the past decade or so yes and there is an explosion so the journal of the american medical association jama one of our nation's leading scholarly journals just a few weeks ago published a study looked at the diagnosis of autism in this country in 2011 and
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
compared with 2022 and found in those 11 years between 2011 and 2022, the diagnosis for autism for children five to eight years of age tripled. Why? Well, the authors of the study didn't suggest why, but the main, the mainstream, the official explanation is improved awareness and screening. Okay. I'm not buying that.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
I'm not buying it because I'm a family doctor and I'm seeing firsthand what's going on. And I can tell you that, Okay, autism is a spectrum. At one end, we've got this severely impaired kid who is not talking, not verbal, profoundly impaired. And there has been a rise there. And at that severe end, I might actually agree with RFK Jr.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
that there's toxins in the environment and something bad is happening there. That's not the kid I'm talking about. What's going on at the other end? The kid who is functioning, the kid who is...
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
uh in school but he's now being labeled as being on the spectrum okay here's something that i actually know something about because i'm seeing this let's think about this eight-year-old boy who's defined who's disrespectful who spits who bites 20 years ago the teacher would have said to the parents look this is totally unacceptable your son is rude when the teacher says to the parents your son is rude the burden of responsibility is on the parents
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
They have to step up. They have to teach their son, okay, you need to behave differently or else. But today, same boy, same behavior. The teacher is much more likely to say something like, your son seems to have a deficit in social awareness skills. Have you thought of having him evaluated? And he goes and he gets evaluated. And sure enough, he gets labeled as being on the spectrum.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Well, you know what? He's not on the spectrum. He's a rude, disrespectful boy immersed in this culture of disrespect. Good news, he's just rude. Yes, because the culture has changed. And the first chapter of the new edition of my book, The Collapse of Parenting, is titled The Culture of Disrespect.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
In my own practice, a mom of an eight-year-old boy said, can you explain to me what's going on with our son? His father and I never talked this way. And he thinks it's funny to be disrespectful and talk back. And I said to mom, I said, do you guys have the Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr.? And she said, of course. I said, lock it down. Turn off.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Do not allow Disney, Disney Jr., Nickelodeon, Nick Jr. Don't allow it. And it stopped. Disney and Nickelodeon, they are teaching kids that it's cute, that it's funny to be disrespectful, to talk. Back in, mom called me three weeks later and she said, it stopped. These shows are teaching kids that it's cute and funny to be disrespectful and to talk back.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And the culture has become a culture of disrespect. And it's not just Disney and Disney Junior. You know, Lil Nas X had this huge song, Old Town Road, 12 weeks, 12 consecutive weeks, at number one, the most popular song in the United States. And he sings, can't nobody tell me nothing. You can't tell me nothing.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Bill Maher earlier this year had a huge bestseller with his book, and he observes in his book, young people are beautiful but stupid. Old people are ugly but more likely to be wise. So he continues, any successful culture will teach the young people to respect the old people so that they can learn. So the beautiful young people can learn from the wise old people. You can't tell me nothing.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Can't nobody tell me nothing. This new culture of disrespect where American popular culture from the Disney Channel to the most popular songs to TikTok and Instagram breaks bonds across generation. You can't tell me nothing. If you can't tell me nothing, why go to school? Why go to church? The new American culture of disrespect breaks bonds across generations.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And the result is kids in their bedroom looking at screens who want nothing to do with their parents, nothing to do with church. And the result is kids who are adrift. And this is a major factor driving this growing generation of kids who are adrift and looking for meaning.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
We need young people to respect their elders. And the anthropologists would agree with Bomar. Every successful culture teaches young people to respect their elders. And we used to do that too. As recently as... 20, 30 years ago, American culture was a culture of respect. And the most popular TV shows, like The Andy Griffith Show in the 1960s, even Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the 1990s.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Yes, were shows that had those strong connections across generations. We have lost that. And, you know, you and I cannot change Hollywood, but we can create a culture of respect in our own home. And again, that's what I'm trying to do in my book, The Collapse of Parenting. We can't change Hollywood, but we can. I'm trying to encourage parents and give parents some guidance.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
How do you do that in your own home? You've got to create that culture of respect within your own home. And you've got to be confident, asserting authority in your own home. It's not about discipline. It's about creating those bonds of love and respect across the generations.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Yeah. So that's a riff on gentle parenting, which I talk about in the new edition, which really wasn't a thing 10 years ago, but it certainly is now. Gentle parenting means letting kids decide. Gentle parenting means that good parenting means letting kids decide. And gentle parenting is profoundly harmful.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And again, in the new edition, I present a lot of evidence that that is so, because the kids often are mistaken. And, you know, what is what is childhood for? I mean, literally, a four year old child has barely begun. A four year old horse is a mature adult and a horse is a bigger animal than a human. So it can't just be about biological development.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
maturity because a horse, as I said, is a bigger animal and a horse is fully mature by four years of age. A human is developing, is immature for more years than most animals live. Why? Why does it take so long? We don't have to guess.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
We have scholars like Dr. Melvin Connor at Emory who spent his entire career, decades, studying this question, published this huge tome of 800 pages, Oxford University Press, titled The Evolution of Childhood, Comparing Development in Our Species with Development in Other Species.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And the answer he gives, the reason it takes so many years, is that it takes many years for parents to teach the child right and wrong.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And so I cite a column by a longtime columnist for the New York Times, Jennifer Finney Boylan, who wrote a column about enlightened parenting in which she asserts, and I'm quoting that, she says that enlightened parenting means, and I quote, setting your child free to discover for themselves their own right and wrong. And if in so doing your child becomes a stranger to you, then so be it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
That may seem enlightened to some, but But it's not enlightened. It's a dereliction of duty. If you set your child free to discover for themselves their own right and wrong, and they have a device with internet access, what they will discover is Drake and Bruno Mars and Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B and transgenderism and mainstream pornography. Your job is to teach your child right and wrong.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
To inscribe truth. Your law on the hearts of your child. That's Deuteronomy 6. That's your job as a parent. Don't set your child loose to discover for themselves their own right and wrong. That's a dereliction of duty. Don't listen to the New York Times. Don't listen to National Public Radio. Do your job as a parent.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
That's the message I'm trying to communicate in my book, The Collapse of Parenting.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
I think it really varies from one child to the next. And as a rule, girls mature faster than boys do. Girls reach full maturity and brain development by about 22 years of age. Boys don't reach maturity and brain development until 30 years of age. So that explains a lot if you think about it. And when in doubt, wait. I find a lot of parents that I think are confiding too early.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And I know a boy who was very insecure because his mom was confiding, a single mom was confiding in her son about how they were broke. And he took that literally. And he thought that they literally didn't have money for food. And he was very insecure until he graduated and went off to to college and realized that they actually were not that broke.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And again, parents and sometimes single parents are a little bit more prone to this because they don't have an adult confidant. Sometimes I've observed as a family doctor, they confide in their kids because they don't have a partner to confide in. And they're confiding in their 12-year-old when maybe they shouldn't be.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And as a result, that 12-year-old is insecure, more insecure than they have to be. So when in doubt, keep it to yourself is one general rule I've learned.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
No. So there's a whole chapter in the new edition titled Humility, which I call the most un-American of virtues. You know, Justin Bieber had a big hit a few years back where he's saying, I'm going to light up the sky like lightning and this world will belong to me. Being proud and proud. standing tall and this world will belong to me. Those are very American characteristics.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
But we now have all these studies where researchers find that the kid with the highest self-esteem at 15 years of age is that individual who's most likely to be resentful and frustrated 10 years down the road. Because if I'm so amazing at 15, how come I'm working for a low wage in a cubicle at 25 years of age?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Actually, one of the best predictors of happiness and contentment at 15 years of age is humility, being humble. And yes, absolutely. And you'll find that research in my book, The Collapse of Parenting, being humble, being grateful. powerfully and accurately predicts happiness and contentment. How do you teach humility? And again, parents are confused. They don't get this at all.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
When I speak to parents about the virtue of humility during question and answer, a mother said, I don't want to teach my daughter to be humble. That's ridiculous. I wanted to have my daughter to have a high self-esteem. So when that big job opportunity comes along, she'll go for it. I want to teach my daughter to be humble. That's, that's ridiculous.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
I said, mom, with all due respect, you're confused. You're confusing being humble with being timid. Those are not the same thing. They're very nearly opposites and the virtue you want for your daughter in the situation you're describing when a big job opportunity comes along, the virtue you want for your daughter is, is not high self-esteem.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
The virtue you want for your daughter in that situation is courage. Courage means you know your inadequacies, your failures, your shortcomings, and you find the strength to move forward anyhow. There is no courage without fear. High self-esteem is not the virtue that you're looking for. High self-esteem leads to frustration and resentment. And I can tell you this firsthand.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
I had a girl in my own practice who at age 15 had very high self-esteem. She wrote a short story, and her English teacher wrote on it, A+++, you have a spark of the divine fire. And she went on to write several novels, couldn't get an agent, couldn't get a publisher. And at 23 years of age, she is seething with resentment and frustration and envy. Why did that girl get her novel published?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
I can't even get an agent. I can't get a publisher. High self-esteem leads to frustration and envy. So you want to teach humility. Yes, you do. How do you teach humility, the right kind of humility? It begins with chores. It begins with chores. And again, many parents don't get this. Many parents don't get this. And they're like, okay, I want my daughter to get good grades.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And we have the resources. We can hire a housekeeper. My daughter's job is school. Her job is school. So we can hire a housekeeper to do the chores. Many parents have said this to me. And the unintended, the message they're sending to their daughter is you're too important. to make your bed. Don't do that. Don't send that message. Don't send that message. Chores is a great way to teach humility.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And throughout the book, I follow the Phillips family, a family I've known now for 30 years. And it's an amazing story of an amazing family, Bill and Janet Phillips and their, and their four sons. And I've been in touch with this family now for 30 years. And it's an affluent family, a big, big, home in a mansion in Potomac, Maryland. And they had the money.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
They could have hired landscapers, but they didn't. They insisted that their four sons do all the chores. And I asked Shannon, why did you do that? And she said, yeah, we could have hired landscapers, but I wanted them to learn the meaning of work, the value of work. And I quoted from her words in the book that, yeah, even if you have the money, you need to teach your kid to do this.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And her son, Andrew, really one of the most amazing athletes I ever knew, have ever known in my 30 years as a family doctor, was a... recruited by Stanford, played on the Stanford football team alongside Andrew Luck. But he was playing at the Maryland program after 10th grade in high school.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And the coach there had just said what a great football player he was and how he wanted to recruit and play at Maryland. And his father said, oh, Andrew, I didn't tell you. You're going to be working – on one of my boats this summer. He owned a fishing business, scraping guts off the deck. And Andrew was so upset. He wanted to do all this fun stuff this summer.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And instead he's scraping dead fish off of a salmon fishing boat next to this guy who's just been released from prison, a convicted felon, drug dealer, a Mexican who's talking about coming to Jesus in the state penitentiary. And, but Andrew said, you know,
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
I learned something, uh, working alongside this drug dealers come to Jesus, something I would never have learned at, you know, the upscale, uh, camp learning about the value of hard work, learning humility, humility, the most un-American of virtues. You need to teach your kid humility. Humility leads to contentment and happiness.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
I would encourage my child to have their loves properly ordered. It was a phrase going back to St. Augustine. To love God first. Make sure you want the right things for the right reasons. So if my daughter, for example, wanted to be an actress, Why do you want to be an actress?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
You want to be an actress because you're inspired by the challenge of trying to become someone else and to get inside that person's head and persuade the audience that you are that person. That's great. That is great. And I totally support that and endorse that. If you want to be an actress because you want to be rich and famous, that's the wrong reason. Why do you want this?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
What are you in this for? know yourself, know your motivation, want the right things for the right reasons. You got to dig down deeply, know who you are and be headed in the right direction for the right reason. Got to know yourself.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Yeah, it reminds me of my own mom, the late Dr. Janet Sachs, pediatrician. And I was the youngest of three boys. And I remember when we were at a friend's house and one of the other moms said, oh, Jackie, your youngest is going to be leaving soon to go to college. And she said very coolly, she said, well, they do grow up, you know, that this is what's supposed to happen.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
But again, a lot of parents are confused about this. And again, in my own practice, husband and wife were planning a ski vacation and they wanted their 13-year-old to come with them. And she said, well, you know, I'm not that big on skiing. How about if I just stay at Arden's house? You and dad go away and I'll stay at Arden's house. And mom was very proud of this.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And she was boasting to me that her daughter did not go on the ski vacation. And I said, uh-uh, that's not good. you should have insisted that she come with you. At age 13, your daughter's primary attachment should be to you, the parents. And again, parents are confused. At age 13, the primary attachment should still be to the parents.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
18. At 13, 14, 15, 16 years of age, the primary attachment should still be to the parents. And we've got so much research now showing that when it breaks too soon, At 23 years of age now, that girl's still now going to be texting her parents and saying, I don't know what to do. What should I do, mom? And we've got so many of these stories now. And not just stories, we've got data.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
We've got this explosion of kids in their 20s and even 30s who are now living with their parents. There are more 30-year-olds living with their parents than has ever been the case in American history. It's a weird demographic reversal.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
of failure to launch, of young people who now are unable to live independently because the acorn broke open too early, is the analogy I use in the new edition of The Collapse of Parenting. These kids broke out on their own at 12 years of age and went and hung out with their their primary attachment was their 12 year old peers at 12, 13, 14, 16 years of age.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And now at 25 years of age, they don't know how to live independently. the, they did not develop.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Absolutely. It was a much healthier culture. We're talking about the culture of The Andy Griffith Show, Happy Days, Family Ties. And again, this is not a guess, this is not nostalgia. And I talk about this in the book and I talk about how the culture has changed and the culture of the last 15 years has become a much more toxic culture, a culture of envy and disrespect.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And this is why the burden on parents now is much greater because now they have to do much more They have to do things that your parents never had to do. They have to provide a culture, which your parents didn't have to do. Your parents didn't have to be there for that. But now parents today have to do so much more.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
They have not only to provide a culture, they have to block out all the toxicity and harm of the bad toxic culture. of the Disney Channel and of TikTok and Instagram, and they have to provide a good, healthy culture, and they don't even know it. Many parents are not even aware of all the bad things that the culture is doing.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
So again, the mission of the book, the objective of the book, is to wake parents up, to make them aware that, look, your TV is an agent of uh, of, of this really bad culture. And, and you don't have to turn off the TV, uh, but, but, but block out the Disney channel, you know, home, home and garden television. That's okay. The history channel is okay, but not the Disney channel. Uh,
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And your laptop is fine. You can watch The Megyn Kelly Show, but not YouTube. YouTube is spreading a lot of really bad stuff. If you're going to watch YouTube, make sure you're there. You can watch The Megyn Kelly Show, but not Andrew Tate, for goodness sake. Oh, my gosh.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
So warning parents to block out the bad stuff, to all the things that you've got to know now as a parent, because American culture has changed. That's why it's so important.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
I've got a chapter in the book for that parent. And the chapter is titled Enjoy. And actually, the new chapter is titled Joy, J-O-Y. And basically, I would say... Do a vacation. Just you and your kid, you and your family together. Go someplace fun and do something fun with your kid. And they may be kicking and screaming. And I describe a father and son where exactly that happened.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And the son didn't want to go and was kicking and screaming, didn't want to go. That has actually worked. That is the one thing that has actually worked. Just doing fun things together with your kid, not lecturing them, just doing fun things with your kid is the natural God-given way to reconnect with your child.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Yes. Absolutely. So, uh, 15 years ago, I wrote a book called girls on the edge and the girls I interviewed back then wanted to be effortlessly perfect. That was the thing back in 2009. Um, and then more recently, the publisher asked me to write an updated version. And I found that girls today don't want to be effortlessly perfect. Uh,
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
That's boring, that's lame, that's basic white bitch and who wants to be that? And the words that kids use on social media that they teach others to use kind of reinforce that. Are you gender conforming or are you gender non-conforming? Well, who wants to be conforming? Are you neurodivergent or are you neurotypical? You know, who wants to be typical? You know, that's boring.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Divergent, you know, who wants to be typical and conforming? You want to be divergent and non-conforming. Um, and so Mary Harrington has coined this term, uh, normophobia. Um, kids don't want to be normal. Uh, and this is a growing issue. It's not true of all kids, but it's true of a growing number of kids. Uh, they don't want to be normal. Um, uh, It's not cool to be normal.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
You got to have, and this is really something that is spread on American social media, on TikTok and Instagram. You got to talk about how you are anxious, how you're depressed or how you're struggling with your gender identity or how you're wrestling with being trans or, or, or you're non-binary or whatever. You know, 70 years ago, C.S. Lewis wrote this book for kids, The Magician's Nephew.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And, and he said that the, The problem about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed. And substitute stupider for anxious or depressed. The trouble with trying to make yourself more anxious or more depressed than you really are is that you very often succeed.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
The whole point of cognitive behavioral therapy is that a big part of being anxious and depressed is that you're making yourself anxious and depressed. And as a psychologist and a family doctor, I can tell you a lot of these kids are making themselves anxious and depressed. They're talking themselves into being anxious and depressed.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And again, we mentioned earlier that why is this not being seen in Greece and Russia? Well, I don't. speak Greek or Russian, but I talk with people who do. And I can tell you, this is not a thing in Greece and Russia. Greek and Russian kids don't see anything cool about talking themselves into being anxious and depressed. This is a uniquely American English speaking world weirdness.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
I just came from Canada where this is definitely a thing as well. Um, And American parents need to understand how toxic and how weird this is. We need to teach our kids there's nothing cool about being anxious or depressed. And we need to disconnect our kids from the toxic culture that is spreading this, which is very much part of this woke mind virus thing.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
There's nothing cool about being anxious or depressed or lesbian or gay or bisexual or non-binary or trans. It is good to be healthy. It is good to be straight. There's nothing wrong with that. And again, you need to create a culture in your own home where it is fine to be normal.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Yeah, so-called trauma-informed therapy, I think, does not have a place in a public school setting. And I don't mean a – I mean in a setting where there's a bunch of kids around. The classroom should not be group therapy. The objective in the classroom, the first objective should be to teach the content, not to conduct informal group therapy with untrained therapists.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Uh, so on that point, I agree with Abigail Schreier.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Well, I don't think that kids should be drinking. I think the dangers are clear. I'm actually more concerned as a family doctor with vaping. I see vaping is more popular than drinking right now, and it is spreading. I think kids need to be aware of the dangers. but it's really more of a issue of what's popular.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Uh, and if all the other kids are doing it, it's really hard for kids, uh, not to, if everyone else in their group is doing it. Uh, so you need to be aware of what all the kids are doing. Um, again, I talk about in my, um, in, in the, in my book, the collapse of parenting, the Phillips family, uh, Mr. Phillips had a breathalyzer, uh, and he would insist on, uh, if the boys were popular.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And so kids would come to their home from other parties. And if a kid appeared intoxicated, he would insist that the kid blow into the breathalyzer. And if the kid was drunk, he would insist that the parents come and pick up the kid and drive them home. And that very quickly became known. And everyone would say, well, you know, the crazy Phillips dad, he's got the breathalyzer.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And that had interesting consequences because people would say, well, you know, the crazy Phillips dad, he's got the breathalyzer. And that would give other kids an excuse not to drink because they would say, well, I'm going to the Phillips place, so I can't drink. You want to give kids an excuse not to drink. So by all means, buy a breathalyzer and have it at the home.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And that will give your kid an excuse not to drink. So your kid can say, well, I cannot drink because my dad's got a breathalyzer. He's gonna insist on testing me when I get home. Think about excuses you can give your kid. You wanna be the evil parent. You want your kid to be able to say, I can't do that because my evil parents will do X. My dad will make me blow in the breathalyzer.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Breathalyzers are cheap. give your kid an opportunity to blame you for doing the right thing.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Uh, so, uh, I believe that sexual activity is intended for a, uh, married couple. And I believe that, uh, we want to teach that to our kids. Um, Uh, and, uh, I, again, describe Marlo Phillips' true story using her real name in the book. Her parents had that same belief, and they were strict. They would not allow her to be alone with a boy throughout her high school years.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And she was like, that is so ridiculous. My best friend, she was alone with her boyfriend the entire weekend. Her parents were away. She was alone with her boyfriend the entire weekend. And I'm not allowed to be with a boyfriend forever. This is child abuse. I'm going to call Child Protective Services. And her mom said, all right, here's the phone.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
She said, I'm going to have to be in therapy for the rest of my life because of the way you guys are abusing me. And then she went away to college. She went to the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. And she told me at the beginning of her second year, she had an epiphany.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
She suddenly realized, I'm the only girl here who's not going to have to be in therapy for the rest of my life because of the way my parents treated me. She said, all these other girls here, they're coming to me, they're saying, do you think this picture I'm putting on Instagram, do you think it's too skanky or maybe not skanky enough?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Do you think I'm giving oral sex to too many guys or maybe not enough guys? And she wants to grab these girls and say... Have you no dignity? Have you no self-concept that all you care about is what the other guys think? And she realized, my parents raised me right, that I have dignity, that I have self-concept, that my self-concept does not depend on what the boys think of me.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And yeah, it's a toxic culture for girls out there that's all about dignity. what the boys think of how you look and getting down on your knees and giving oral sex to other guys. And yes, the best parent is both strict and loving. And the mainstream culture right now is about girls getting down on their knees and giving oral sex to boys they barely know. You don't want that for your daughter.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And you have to make that very clear.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
You insist on it. Yeah. The best parent is both strict and loving. And American parents are confused. They think you have to choose between being strict or loving. But the best parent is both strict and loving.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Well, I'm very troubled because, uh, so much of this is an artifact of modern medicine. Uh, recall that synthetic hormones, uh, were not a thing, uh, until, uh, really, um, 80 years ago. Uh, this entire transgender movement is a creation of modern medicine. It was, uh, not with us before the 20th century. Let's be straight. Lesbian gay has always been with us. It's mentioned in the Hebrew Bible.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Transgender is not a thing. Despite claims made by the transgender movement, the notion that there have always been boys who insist they're girls and girls who insist they're boys is really a very modern development. It's a creation of modern medicine.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Those medicines that that child talked about didn't exist a century ago, didn't exist a thousand years ago, could not have been obtained a hundred years ago. And to what extent is this a real biological phenomenon? To what extent is this transgender movement created by the cultural movement and the politics? You know what? We don't actually have to guess.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Earlier this year, a team of researchers at Stanford Medical School did a study of 1,500 young adults, 20 to 35 years of age, and looked at their brain activity. These are young people, men and women, 20 to 35 years of age, and they are awake and they're in an MRI scan. And you're looking at their brain activity.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Now, all human brains have a fingerprint, a neural fingerprint that is more unique to you than your own fingerprint on your finger. That's been known for many years. And the researchers wanted to know How does a man's fingerprint differ from a woman's fingerprint? And the image that they obtained, the graph that they showed is really astonishing. And there it is.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Yes, there's no overlap. So the women are up in one corner and the men are all down in the other corner and there's no overlap. And the difference between the men and the women is larger than the variation among the men and the women. And what this graph is showing very clearly is that whatever is going on in the man's brain at rest is different from what's going on in a woman's brain at rest.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
There were 1,500 individuals. Now, in a survey conducted earlier this year, more than 3% of American high school kids said that they were trans. Well, 3% of... 1,500 would be 45. We ought to find 45 people in the middle or crossing over, but we found zero. Zero. And more from this study. Okay. So the researchers found- So what does that tell us?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
it is telling us that these kids are confused and X, X, um, an X, Y male, uh, that child in that video, we just saw as an X, Y male, every cell in that individual's body is X, Y male. They may take female hormones. They may be castrated, but they are still an X, Y male. Um, and, um, In my book, Why Gender Matters, I show that boys see differently, they hear differently, they smell differently.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
than girls do. And that will not change. Now, that doesn't mean that all boys are one way and all girls are another way. There's great variation among boys and there's great variation among girls. And we should celebrate and acknowledge those variations. But male and female are biological realities. They are not social constructs. And
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Pretending that that is not so and castrating boys and giving them female hormones is not going to be in that boy's best interest. That is what this research is showing us. Possibly there may be rare exceptions. We can debate that case. but the comprehensive review coming out of the United Kingdom by Dr. Cass and her colleagues strongly suggests that in the great majority of cases,
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
in the great majority of cases, pre-pubertal kids should not be transitioning to the other sex. But I want to finish that Sanford study because they also found, with these very high-resolution functional MRI scans and the sophisticated
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
analysis that they were doing, they found that they could analyze the brains of the men and they could predict with high accuracy cognitive function, including intelligence for the men. But those rules that they came up with to predict intelligence in men were of zero value in predicting intelligence in women.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Conversely, they came up with rules that could predict with high accuracy, cognitive function, including intelligence in women. But those rules that predicted intelligence in women were of zero value in predicting intelligence in men. These findings tell us that whatever it is that determines intelligence in the brain of a man does not predict intelligence in brains of women.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Whatever it is that determines intelligence in the brain of a woman does not predict intelligence in the brain of a man. Now, if you subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, if you subscribe to the New York Times, if you listen to every program on national public radio,
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
You heard no mention of this study conducted by the Stanford Medical School and published in one of our most prestigious scholarly journals. If you subscribe to my free newsletter, you would have heard about it. But our mainstream media, our mainstream media never mentioned it. So go to my website.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Okay, that's just creepy. That's really creepy. And that's extremely creepy. And You know, we could speculate regarding that father's psychopathology and why he is doing that. And I don't want to speculate. I think we need to focus on the child. You made reference to the new chapter in the new edition of The Collapse of Parenting.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
I was talking with a parent in Orange County, California, and she'd been trying to get pregnant for three years. And she and her husband finally did get pregnant. She was very excited. She was telling... everyone at the school, including people she barely knew. And she told a fellow teacher at the school, she said, guess what? We're having a boy.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And her colleague said, don't you think you should let the baby decide? And that is indeed a thing that her colleague reprimanded her, that the colleague thought you should
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
wait and not assign a sex because there are indeed many Americans now who think that sex is assigned at birth and you should wait until the child is three or four years of age and then let the child decide, give the child a gender neutral name at birth and then let the child choose. And if the child was assigned male at birth, but they decide that they are female,
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
then you should raise a child as a girl, which leads down the road to castration and opposite sex hormones, et cetera. And I felt this was necessary to introduce a new chapter that wasn't in the original version 10 years ago. The new chapter titled Babies, because this is really harmful and it is psychotic. It is utterly detached from reality. And sex is not assigned at birth.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Sex is recognized at birth because indeed you are born male or female. And those differences that the Stanford University group recognized in adults are present in the baby prior to birth. We have other studies of women in the third trimester where they've done high resolution MRI scans of the baby still in its mother's womb.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
And they find the same differences in the cognitivity of the male brain compared with the female brain. Because Genesis 1.27, in the image of God, he created him male and female. He created them. It doesn't say black and white he created them. It doesn't say... Asian and Hispanic, he created them. Black, white, Asian, and Hispanic are indeed man-made categories. But male and female are of God.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
You are, in fact, born male or female. There is a rare category called intersex. About 2 in 10,000 individuals are indeed born both male and female. That's a rare pathology on the same order of magnitude as Siamese twins. But for 99.98% of individuals, you are either male or female. And that's the way we are born and made.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax and Candice DeLong | Ep. 962
Thanks again for inviting me.