Legit Parenting
Legit Parenting
Raising Resilient Kids: Wisdom on Nurturing Strength and Overcoming Adversity with Dr. Robert Brooks
Discover the foundations of strength in our children as Dr. Robert Brooks, a distinguished psychologist and author, joins us to share his invaluable wisdom on resilience. This episode is an enlightening journey into the key elements that contribute to raising individuals who can navigate life's adversities with grace. Dr. Brooks offers a lens through which we can understand the delicate balance of genetics, environment, and the pivotal role of supportive adults in cultivating resilience in young minds.
Our conversation takes us through several compelling narratives that underscore the profound effects of empathy, self-efficacy, and personal control. As both a therapist and a parent this conversations offers practical strategies for strengthening these attributes in our children, particularly those with exceptionalities like ADHD and learning disabilities. These stories not only illuminate the challenges but also the strategies that enable children to emerge stronger and more independent.
This enlightening episode leaves us with a renewed sense of gratitude for the wisdom imparted by Dr. Brooks and a reassuring message to parents: there is immense value in simply being 'this side of good enough'.
Welcome to Legit Parenting, where imperfect parents build resume kids and families. A place to learn real solutions based in brain science to fit your unique parenting style. We show you how to tackle today's challenges for children and teens. Remember, when it comes to raising kids, you just have to be this side of good enough. Join us and we will show you how. I'm your host, craig Nipenberg. I've been a child and family therapist for nearly 40 years. I'm the business owner of one of Colorado's largest private practices, best-selling author and father of four. In my fathering world, I've been a birth death, a single parent, a step parent, adopted parent, a parent of exceptional students and a grandparent of two. By my side is Sydney Moreau, our production manager and mother of three ages preschool through 18. Together, we bring you a guilt-free parenting perspective with solutions that actually fit into your real life. Welcome to Legit Parenting. I'm your host, craig Nipenberg, along with my producer and mother of three, sydney Moreau. If you listened to last week's show, we were just talking about parenting teenagers. Sydney reminded me she's got a seven-year-old, but she's going to have another one. She's done two through ten years and she's got another one coming. That's why you have children when you're young, I think. Also a big shout out and thanks to Colorado Public Radio for airing my interview about the new book. We will post it into the show as well as an episode. It was really a very fun time, so really appreciated that.
Speaker 1:Now I want to get right to today's show and a very special guest. The topic of our show is resiliency. We're going to focus on how to help your children, your family, be resilient. Our guest has been writing about resiliency and talking about resiliency for decades. This is not a new concept. He was doing it long before anyone else. Now, before I read his introduction and mention his name, I wanted to share a bit about myself and my new career when I started 40 years ago. Like most people, when you're in a new career, you start looking for people ahead of you to supervise you, to consult with you, go to lectures, to hear them. My earliest wise elder in the field, who I wanted to model myself after, is our guest today. I could say he's my favorite guru and I suppose that makes me a groupie. I don't know if he's ever known he had groupies, but I'm one of them, so I'm the fan club. So I'll read his bio and then introduce him to you.
Speaker 1:Dr Robert Brooks is a psychologist on the faculty of Harvard Medical School and former director of the Department of Psychology at McLean Hospital, the psychiatric hospital in the Boston area. He received his doctorate in clinical psychology from Clark University in Worcester, massachusetts, and did his postdoctoral training at the University of Colorado Medical Center in Denver Go Buffs. He has lectured nationally I almost wore my Buff shirt for you, bob. He has lectured nationally and internationally and written extensively about such themes as resiliency across the lifespan, education, parenting and creating positive school and work environments. He's the author or co-author of Get those People 21 books. I've only done two. I got a long way to go, including the best, in my opinion Raising Resilient Children, the Power of Resiliency, achieving Balance, confidence and Personal Strength in your Life, and Tenacity in Children, nurturing the Seven Instincts for Lifetime Success.
Speaker 1:Dr Brooks has received many awards for his work, most recently the Mental Health Humanitarian Award for William James College in Massachusetts for his contributions. And an educator, clinician and author, he has also served as a consultant for Sesame Street Parents Magazine. That is awesome. Additional information about Dr Brooks can be found on his website, wwwdrrobertbrookscom. Welcome, bob. It is so incredible to have you on the show today.
Speaker 2:Wow, that introduction is really something. I didn't know you were a groupie, but that was very thoughtful and kind. I really love you. One I just want to say, having endorsed right with endorsement for your new book, I thought it was just wonderful. I'm looking forward to hearing the interview you did with Colorado Public.
Speaker 1:Radio. Thank you so much. Your endorsement meant the world to me, both personally and professionally. It's like getting the stamp of approval by your guru. I got it in just in time.
Speaker 2:If I recall correctly, it was your birthday when I got it in. Your owe me a very nice note, but it was a very easy book to write the endorsement for. I know it will be of great help to parents. Thank you, I just wanted to say that and return a compliment to you and all the wonderful work you do.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much. You'll get a surprise out of this. As I recall, you told me once that you lived at Yale in Colorado.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I want to remember, yes, something around it was South Steel Street, yeah not too far.
Speaker 1:My office is about a quarter mile from that intersection.
Speaker 2:Oh wow when you said Yale Street, I remembered it was South Steel, but off Colorado Boulevard. If I recall this is many years ago. It's turned down at Yale Street the year in and then we'll get to resumes, but the year in Colorado was really as a postdoctoral fellow was really at. It's just such an important year for me in terms of my interest in the interface between psychology and education and Just really use. I felt I was really growing during that year so I have such fond memories of then. I've been back in a number of times. The last couple times was webinars, but hopefully I'll get out to Colorado again.
Speaker 1:Well, we would love that and I'd love to host you.
Speaker 2:Thank you, that would be awesome.
Speaker 1:Let's get into our topic. So You've been writing about this and talking about this for a long time. How do you define resiliency?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and not to overly simplify it, because there's concepts like resilience and recovery and Post-traumatic growth, but some of the people doing research in the field really more and more looking at resilience as not so much recovery or though it could be, but Resilient people really are able to keep a certain equilibrium During very adverse times.
Speaker 2:But I don't want to confuse any of the listeners or whatever. A number of people still say Resiliency is the capacity to bounce back from adversity. Some some really say that it really has a lot to do with Just remaining or retaining that equilibrium. So I think for the audience as we speak about resilience, for me it's the capacity really to deal effectively or cope effectively With adversity when it appears, and all kids are gonna face adversity. Oh, I should mention the initial research Looking at resilience. Not surprisingly, researchers looked at kids who grew up in war zones, kids who grew up in abusive homes, kids who struggled in school which I know is certainly one of your areas of expertise and they started to wonder why do some of these kids who have faced this adversity, why do they make it in Life good relations, decent jobs and why is it that some do not?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, which is a huge question, you have to. What I was wondering about? Their genetic constitution? But I want to get to charismatic adults in a second. But I love your definition. It sounds very stoic to me. I'm a big fan of stoicism. And now it's interesting we're talking about it today, because today is the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, where our country had to maintain its equilibrium and, yeah, keep moving forward. I also remember St Anzapisca, where I was consultant for 27 years. On the morning of 9 11, all of us teachers are gathered in one of the middle school lobbies and watching the TV and it just, we're all just in tears and it's shot. And our lower school principal, mary E B God bless her, who was just one resilient person she went up to the TV, turned it off and said ladies and gentlemen, it's time to do what we do and go teach the children. And wow, and we did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's wonderful. Yeah, I know teachers and there was a lot that educators did during that very, another very difficult time in our lives In 9, 11.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, brutal. You talk about the charismatic adult Mm-hmm and the link between that and children who are more resilient. Tell us more about what you mean by that.
Speaker 2:Sure, and I'll tell you who was the original one who used those words. But as research was taking place, craig, about resilient number, years ago, research has started asking people, as I had mentioned, people who had overcome great adversity, who were resilient. They basically asked them we could have never predicted, based on how you were growing up and what you Experienced and what you face, that you would be as hopeful and as optimistic as you are now and again, really, judging by everything they do very good jobs, good relationships and they asked a question that very straightforward what do you think was the most important thing in your childhood and adolescence to help you To be resilient today, to be optimistic? In every study that was ever done, bar none, the first answer was almost always the same and it seems very simple, not simplistic, very simple, but I often say, excuse me, in a very spiritual way it's why we're all here. The first answer was there was at least one person along the way who truly believed in me and stood by me. Yeah, even one person, hopefully many.
Speaker 2:And then the late psychologist Julius Siegel, who was one of my heroes In the field of psychology.
Speaker 2:He wrote it was just a three-page article which I quote in almost all of my works in the 1980s where he said in research conducted around the world about children of misfortune, the ones who make it During their childhood or adolescence have the have the presence of what he called this charismatic adult.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I almost wish he hadn't used the word charismatic, because some people have this image of great charisma. It doesn't necessarily have to be that way, but his definition, craig, was for me so poetic and poignant. He said a charismatic adult is an adult from whom a child or adolescent gather strength. And I should just add you know, when I started using Siegel's term, I would get a question do we, as adults, need charismatic adults in our life? And I've said, I've said, unless we've decided to be a hermit, we need people from whom we gather strength Throughout our lives. But then I added but we also have to think about how we become a charismatic adult in the lives of others, because a key part of resilience is not only having supportive people in your life, but it's also giving back.
Speaker 2:Yes, and we can get more into that, because that's something I've been writing a great deal about recently, it's you're really talking about looking both ways.
Speaker 1:So throughout your life You're looking for other people to guide you or mentor you might. When my father passed at 84, I Decided that my new person I'd be following was Phil Johnson, who is the head of the board for Denver Academy. The head of the board for Denver Academy, the one of the country's largest school for students with exceptional needs. I was on the board there and I thought he's my next mentor. I want to be like him. Yeah, it's my charismatic adult. I also think for myself.
Speaker 1:I have a great deal of hope and optimism and I attribute that to my mother, who was. I will have to ask her. She's still alive at 97. I'll have to ask her for her charismatic adult. But she lived through some really tough time. Her fiance was killed in the Battle of the Bulge and three months later she was there with her friends greeting the soldiers at the train station in St Louis, coming back and passing on candy and hugging the soldiers and, even though it was hers, wasn't coming home. And she experienced the death of her mother by suicide when she was eight months pregnant. And it's been through some really tough times, but she is the most hopeful, optimistic person you could ever meet and I always feel like I got that from her and I don't know if that was just her role modeling or if there's some genetics and then I do like genetics quite a bit, but yes, I'm sorry to interrupt.
Speaker 2:I was just gonna say yesterday I gave a workshop for teachers who work at a school in a psychiatric hospital and we got into the issue of genes and in many of my books I talk about every child is different at birth and the initial research on resilience actually looked mainly at what's in the child. That's why one of my favorite books are resilience. But I don't like the title was called the invulnerable child, because what it basically was. It assumed that there are some super children, if you will, super boys, super girls who come into this world. But then the research really shifted to you could have the best genetic makeup if you will, but if there's no one to encourage or support you, that's not going to be very helpful.
Speaker 2:But I do tell parents and that's why I had a chapter in the book raising resilient children. I do say kids are different at birth and some kids are going to have a little easier time to become resilient. They attach more ease, easily to adults, their temperament is easier, but and then there are some kids who are called more temperamentally difficult kids. But genes play a role. But then the second wave is. Ann Mastin, a researcher on resilience, said the second wave, after just looking at the child, was looking at the interaction between a child and his or her family, and then it expanded even to into whole communities. So for me, resilience is really yes, they're genetic factors and they're very important and experiential factors with significant adults in our life.
Speaker 1:Indeed and one of the analogies I use in my lectures are in the new book was this crossroads and I don't know if you remember the crossroads of Daya, Hampton and Happy Canyon. It's right out by Cherry Hills, which Hampton is an absolute cluster now. It is bumper to bumper every day that intersection accidents. It's a nightmare and I like to think of a needs. And they're on Daya, they're going north, south and they need an adequate road to travel on. And each one of them is their own different type of car and some are porches that are really fast starters but they don't handle the bumps alive Well. And then you got your SUVs aren't as fast but they handle the bumps. And then you have my daughter's 2004 Kia Rio, which is no longer.
Speaker 1:It didn't make it across Hampton, but the idea is that parents are coming in on Happy Canyon merging with their child and other adults, charismatic adults, and they're shepherding across Hampton, and Hampton is our culture. It's all the traffic in our culture that these kids are dealing with. And I still feel like I was asked today. I said kids, brains and brain development still the same and has been forever. But the amount of traffic they're confronting or getting hit by or almost hit by, is just out of this world. With social media guns, climate change news, nonstop awards, they're just what I call as a pandemic of fragility, and at fault it's the culture that is just running over.
Speaker 2:And let me say you address those issues so nicely in your new book in a way that I think will be very helpful to parents, because there are very specific suggestions about some of the topics you just mentioned.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you very much. Now this brings us to another point. So you need a charismatic adult, those adults who hopefully you have plenty or a little child along with their parents, but they're going to be reaching out to other adults every year they get older. They're looking for other adults In that process. You're trying to help them learn to drive their own car and how to take control of that car and how to manage it and how to get across Hampton. Well, because someday they're going to be driving that on their own. So that requires children to learn some personal self-control, right.
Speaker 1:I think everybody likes to talk now about self-efficacy. But when I mentioned that, everybody all the parents who know the term self-esteem got butchered from what it was intended to be Agreed. Yeah, when you say self-efficacy, they'll look at you like what you like to just say personal control, a sense of personal control.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know what's very interesting? Of course, when I talked about charismatic adults, the audience would say to them what does a charismatic adult actually say or do in interaction with a child? And one woman I'm sure she was kidding, she said to me at a workshop. Craig said what do they look like? And I said charismatic adults look very much like all of them. And I want to actually just tell you this quick story. A parent sent me a t-shirt that said I am a charismatic adult.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. I proudly put it on and within five seconds my wife said take it off. You never you know you're on land.
Speaker 1:You're reading your press releases too much.
Speaker 2:The question you're really raising. One could look at it in a different ways. And I do want to talk a little about personal control, because if one says, okay, what does a really a charismatic adult say or do, then you have to ask another question, and this is what led to some of my writings how does a resilient child or adult, I will say, see the world in themselves differently from a child or adult who is not resilient? Because if, as therapists or as educators, if and as parents, we have to ask the question okay, what does it mean to really nurture resilience, which is the title of one of my books nurture resilience in kids? So, just to come back to the issue of personal control, it became, it was very important to me and it's even become more important, especially since COVID. Anyone hearing me speak right now will say what Bob is describing, because I'm going to really look at what it means is really almost like the serenity prayer. So what the research really shows is this resilient children or adults, because it's across the lifespan they face difficulty or whatever they really focus more and more on what is it that they have control over? And then I'll tell you an interesting study, since you mentioned Denver Academy. People who are not resilient are always bemoaning what could have been or what should have been or trying to change things they have no control over.
Speaker 2:Paul Gerber is a psychologist who's done a lot of work on adults with learning disabilities. Now a lot of people say learning differences, but when he did his research he did a lot of research looking at adults with learning disabilities. Some who are doing very well in life had a much more optimistic attitude and he really tried to control for a lot of factors. And then another group which did not. And in his writings and research he said one very distinguishing feature and it ties to personal control is this the adults with learning disabilities who are doing well long ago stopped asking themselves why me. Instead they said I had no control over being born with a learning disability. I have control over is my attitude and response.
Speaker 2:The other group and I'm sure you've seen some you're with therapy sessions the other group they could be 55, 60 years old and they're still saying if I wasn't born with a learning disability I would have a better life. That may be true, but it's very normal to say why me or why my child. But if that continues then what happens is you almost fall into what they call a victim mentality, and that really impacted on my work. When I would see people in therapy and they were really handling things well, I almost always started to ask why do you think things are going so much better now? Because I, as much as I'd like to be complimented as a therapist, what I wanted people to be able to say is hey, bob, I learned a lot from you. But it's really the initiative I took and really changed, because if I'm not going to be there at some point, which then I want them to feel the sense of personal control.
Speaker 1:And I'm a therapeutic work and I've worked a lot with the team and young guys trying to launch right, and whatever the age of the child is, I always my first job is to envision this person in front of me and who they could become, and then translate that to them in a way they feel a sense of hope. So laying out a staircase of okay, this is how you'll do it, but it's up for them to do it. Yes, they have to take control of that.
Speaker 2:Yes, I once was asked by a nine-year-old why did God choose me to be the one with ADHD? And that's a very powerful question, and again at nine. I'm not going to go into all the neurological bases, but what I said to him. He had just had a very thorough evaluation. I said now that we know you have ADHD, the good news is there are things your parents and teachers and other adults could do. But then it's to your point, craig. Then I said and it's also helped you to see what you can do to deal with the ADHD.
Speaker 1:It's a very powerful work.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly, sure. At that moment he was feeling he has this diagnosis, doesn't know as much about it yet, but he's feeling that it's really going to hold him back but to be able to say that can help adults, charismatic adults. But again it gets to that of personal control. But there are things you will be able to learn and do. Yes, that's an important message because we don't want to jump in and help kids, do everything for them. That's where the whole self-esteem movement got such a bad name. It was like protect your kids from any little adversity, which was not, I think, the original intention. No, it wasn't. So personal control then became very important, like during COVID, especially the first year or so we had no control over COVID coming in or we had control over was our attitude and restitute. And so I emphasize that probably if you interviewed any of my former patients or whatever they, and said there's certain remarks Bob makes, they would probably say he often says do you have control over this? And let's look the audience.
Speaker 1:Yes, in fact, right here in my office I have a copy of the entire Serenity Prayer by Reinal Nebore. I don't know if you've ever gotten to read the whole thing, but it's just beautiful.
Speaker 2:Oh, I have the one that's well known. It's much longer. I'll have to read it.
Speaker 1:It's pretty long. You have the first couple lines about God, grant me the.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, no, I didn't.
Speaker 1:The wisdom to know the difference. Change what I can, the wisdom to know the difference. But it goes on for several more paragraphs and it is beautiful.
Speaker 2:I will have to look at it. I know the main couple of first paragraphs, that's great.
Speaker 1:But I also want to get to our parent audience out there. And this just happened yesterday, mom, I was talking to her Mom. She's got a 14-year-old. He is an exceptional student. He's from high school. He's got an IEP Doing great. He got involved in theater. He was like a one-man show.
Speaker 1:My daughter and I once saw him perform, just doing great. Except he's a special at math class and he really struggles. Even though he's quite gifted in math, he doesn't really do well with the detailed algebra equations stories and so he just avoids. It, said to me. She said it's the same every night. He sits there and he gets all anxious and worked up and I try to calm him down.
Speaker 1:And then she said I wonder if maybe earlier this year I should have called up the math teacher and get the interventionist more involved. And I said no, he needs to learn how to take control of this. He's got to learn how to make himself do things he doesn't like, that are hard, in order to achieve some success in life. And I said the next time he starts carrying on, I want you to say I have faith in you. You can do this and leave the room and run, because all he's doing is getting you worked up and then he's going to project all his emotions onto you and get mad at you and the homework doesn't get done. You know, when parents you're like am I supposed to do more for them or how do I know?
Speaker 2:Yeah, first of all, what the mother was asking. In one sense, I often say parenting is like walking a tightrope and sometimes it feels like there's no net underneath. And what was that? Because you're right. First of all, the intruding thought I had, because I know we'll probably get to it. One I'm very impressed with this kid's strengths.
Speaker 2:You mentioned areas of strengths and I'm probably going to ask me this, but I'll bring it in right now, because one of the big mistakes I made as a beginning therapist, craig, is I thought well, parents are coming to see me about their child who's having problems. I really have to focus on those problems and how we fix them. It was an old deficit model and when I would go into schools to consult about kids, I could spend an hour just talking about the deficits, and then I had this epiphany. This goes back 40 years now. I was feeling depressed at those meetings and that is when I started saying to myself OK, from now on, when you meet with parents or teachers about a child, after about 15 minutes you could say now that I've heard about some of the problems, can you tell me what this child's strengths are, their beauty and, as I coined then a term their islands of competence, which I'm going to read for a second.
Speaker 1:But go ahead.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I just want to bring it now. So, in the context of that conversation with the mother, one is you were right away, which I loved. You talked about his strengths. I may be the mother did too, but you talked, and that's so important because those strengths are what we're going to build on. And then we get into this issue of with math. And here's the tie drill, because with the kids I often worked with, I would say let's think about what you can do and what others can do to help you with math. And I became more and more impressed that some of the kids could almost basically tell you and you as a parent, you don't want to be rushing in to help your kid, and if you try to tutor your own kid, we just have more anxious right ourselves. I think the advice you gave was really wonderful. The only thing I would add is to say to a child or, in this case, a teenager we have to figure out what will be helpful to you.
Speaker 1:Yes and we work in and I said that to the mom. I said, yeah, it's better to get him a tutor at the high school like a senior and have him go to school early to working and have him get tutored by the student and do the homework there, but now it helps. Some kids shouldn't do homework at home.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. I won't even get into the whole issue of the value of homework sometimes.
Speaker 1:Oh, that'd be another show.
Speaker 2:That's the whole other topic in which is more controversial, but I think with how, with Mother said, and how you handle it, it goes so much along with a strength-based model. Yes, and really when I say strength-based is you have to look at the beauty of kids, because what I would say about islands of competence, if and how that came about I just want to quickly share this with your audience. I had a this is 40 years ago. I had one of those days you may have had some also where I came home and I worked at for years at a psychiatric hospital and I said to myself Almost every patient I saw today seems to be drowning in a notion of inadequacy. They feel so inadequate and for whatever reason I said, there's an ocean of inadequacy. There must be islands of competence, but whatever we that yeah.
Speaker 1:It was out of no Tiffany.
Speaker 2:Yes, and that's when I started to say you've got to look at it now. Islands of competence is another way of saying areas of strength, but there was something about that metaphor that I actually I can't show. This is audio yesterday to the teachers I show different schools and some schools with kids with special needs, where you walk in and every kid is drawn his or interest or island of competence and it's put up in the hallway.
Speaker 2:Love it yeah and so right away. And parents have said to me it's really nice to go into a school especially these are struggling students and see what they enjoy doing and what they think they do. That's very effective, so it also help out with.
Speaker 1:The best way I could say this is it changed the whole tenor of my interviews with parents and yeah, and especially when you're working with teachers I've been in those meetings to where you're like, yeah, I'm depressed, yeah, and what I would tell parents is you, and if you have a partner and you're talking about your children, focus on the strengths first.
Speaker 1:Yes, to fill you up with hope. If you just always talk about their deficits, you'll continue to feel hopeless. Yes, and for some kids out there, our daughter who's we adopted going on 11 years ago now she was seven and she massive ADHD, some trauma stuff from her early childhood, and the trauma stuff's really gone a while way. Oh, she's doing great. She's about to graduate from Cosmetology School. Our great ADHD stuff does not go away and we have to live with it, which is called a room that looks like a bomb exploded in it, and if we're getting her car keys and you name it, it goes on and on. If we just talk about the problems as a couple, then we're part of that ocean of inadequacy and despair.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Versus focusing on the island's a competency. And I'm going to read the part where I quoted you in my book, and the section is called self efficacy and the exceptional student. So exceptional students would be kids with learning disabilities, adhd, bipolar, all these various sorts of issues. Self efficacy is not only important for all children, but is essential for exceptional students. The best selling author and advocate for the needs of exceptional student, dr Robert Brooks, talks about the concept of helping your child find their island of competency. Even if your child is struggling at school with their emotions and behavior, it's important for them to focus on their island of competency. Or, as Brooks says, in an ocean of inadequacy, you need to have islands of competency. And that is so meaningful, and I think this is true of both of us. I know I have a very soft spot in my heart for exceptional students and I think you do too.
Speaker 2:Yep, Actually, my interest in resilience started working with a lot of kids who were challenged and my first job in McLean Hospital, which is a psychiatric hospital where I worked for years. I was principal of the school and this was a locked door unit and I became very interested how some of these kids really with wonderful staff you could see how they were just becoming more hopeful and optimistic. So a lot of my initial interest was one working as a principal in a school for kids. Many of them had behavioral problems but they also had learning issues and I started saying, even with this challenging population, look at some of how these kids can rise to the occasion with the appropriate kinds of help. So kids who are really struggling, kids who struggle in school, have always a primary interest of mine and that's when I think I would say my interest in resilience first arose, working with this population.
Speaker 1:I'm sure, and another area that I think we see the same in my first book, wired and Connected, my stamp on the signature page was let your empathy be a verb, and you too, I know, really believe in charitable or what you call contributory activities as a family and for students to feel like they're giving to others.
Speaker 2:I would like to yeah, I'd like to first talk about the empathy, because every book I've written, I think, or just about every book, there's a chapter in empathy. And I think it's hard to be a charismatic adult, craig, if we really are not able to start seeing the world throughout. Charles, I not totally simplify empathy, but over the years I've asked parents, both at workshops and in my clinical practice. I have some questions I've asked and then I've asked them what questions were most helpful to you to be more empathic, and I'll just quickly go over them for your listeners here. I'd love to ask parents and teachers what words do you hope your children will use to describe you? And then I, because I tell them, all our kids have words to describe us, just like we had words to describe our parents. The second question which people tell me is really gets them to think a lot what do I say and do on a regular basis so they're likely to use the words I hope they use to describe me? Those kinds of questions get us to think about then. How do we come across? What are we saying or doing?
Speaker 2:And my oldest son, rich, I often mentioned to him he did no work in school in the eighth, ninth, 10th and 11th grade. He thought homework was optional. I did not know it was teachers. So I'll just make this quick point. Here I am at the hospital I'm working at, I'm doctor empathy. I always say put yourself in the kids shoes every day. When I came home, the first question I asked Rich is did you do your homework yet? Why would you start with that kind of? I guess and you know what I say to parents imagine if you came home from work and the first thing your kids said to you is did you finish all your work at work today? Because if you didn't, there's no television for you and if you worked harder, we could live better. Which is basically what we say to kids about. And people laugh but I say but that's how the kid experiences it. So think about your comments and empathy is so important. If kids feel you're not even trying to validate what they're experiencing, it's hard for you to be a carer's mad at adult. Now the second part, and I know you mentioned two things.
Speaker 2:One of the key for me foundations of resilience is basically what I call charitable or contributory activities, and I'll tell you where this came up One of my first books on school climate. I asked 1500 people to fill out as I was going around the country giving talks. Fill out an anonymous questionnaire and it was one of. The first question was of all the experiences you've had at school, what was one of the best experiences you ever had with an adult? I wanted to really see how an adult played a role. Something a teacher or other person at the school said I did that boosted your motivation and your dignity. One of the most common memories, craig, was when you were asked to help out. I remember when a teacher asked me to pass out the milk and straws.
Speaker 1:I remember when a teacher asked me to put you in the truck.
Speaker 2:But so I was somewhat surprised, but now I'm surprised. I was surprised because we now know this wonderful research that, whether it's a four-year-old or a 94-year-old, at any age, one of the things that helps us to deal with stress is when we give back to others. And I'm not advocating you go out volunteer for 80 hours a week or you'll burn out. But even an hour or two a week could make the world of difference. And there's been research to show that kids struggling in high school if you say to them I need your help, could you read to an elementary school kid an hour a week or two hours, it really lessens the dropout rate. Yes, it gives purpose and meaning.
Speaker 1:It gives purpose and meaning and everybody wants to feel they're useful.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:And I will tell you quick and then I'm going to add today at the end I do a clip called Things of Beauty Make Me Cry, and I'm going to talk about one of our guests. I started a program 38 years ago at my little Lutheran church for mental health consumers, or they used to say chronic mentally ill adults.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I realized that one of the favorite activities it's a monthly dinner and then an activity that they love, bingo, and we get more kinds of prizes and stuff. And one of the favorites, though, was our yearly talent night, and the guests would come up and perform talents, and it could be music, poetry, reading jokes, all sorts of things, and they just loved it, because most of us live in a world where we feel like gosh, people are asking me to do so much. I can't do any more than I'm doing. What's worse to me, it would be if no one ever asked you for your talents, if you lived and nobody cared or thought you had anything to contribute. And then taking pictures of our guests and giving them copies back in the old days with the camera, it's just a fabulous event. Every year, we do it in the spring, and they feel like they're contributing, they have something to give.
Speaker 1:And it's really students need to feel that.
Speaker 2:Yes, all of us do yeah.
Speaker 1:I want to resonate on your thing about don't ask about homework first and I heard you say that so many years ago and I followed that same advice and for my son I used to. As soon as he got in the car I'd be like, oh no, the Colorado avalanche just picked up this new player, or we?
Speaker 1:talked about things he liked. And then we get home and then we get around to the homework. Now there are some students that do need to ask. You need to ask them before you pull away, because they probably left the homework in their locker Right, so you got to write it in before you drive away.
Speaker 2:Yes, that part would be there. But when you think of it, see, who's more my issue? How could Bob Brooks, an expert on motivation, have a son who's not doing his homework? See, it was my issue, but he I failed to look at his strengths. He was president of the youth group in town. He could speak to 200 people. I couldn't do that at the age of 16, or at different meetings. And sometimes you get so focused on one issue and the issue is I'm sure in Rich's adult life very few people, if any, have said before I can become your friend, did you do your homework as a kid and we would all live. But everything else, like the whole issue of social, emotional, he was very good at, which was very helpful to him.
Speaker 1:And those are his strengths. Yeah, that is awesome, bob. This has been amazing. I am just enthralled by your incoencible thirst for knowledge, thank you, and what you've curated and done your own research to and I often see myself I'm just a curator of others' research and I just package it in different ways, but you really you do both and just incredible your life's work. I'm curious do you have 21 books? Do you have a favorite one?
Speaker 2:Well, that's probably like asking about your favorite child, but I probably because it was the first in a series of five books.
Speaker 2:Probably raising resilient children was there, like when people say to me what book that was 20 years old now but it's still selling, so they keep producing it. And then, and this was more, after writing a couple books about resilience in children, I really wanted to write a book about resilience in adults, and many parents would say to me they have a book about resilience in our own lives. And that led to one of the books you mentioned, craig, the Power of Resilience, which looks at resilience throughout the lifespan, in teenage, teen years, and the books are not that theoretical one hand, but we have a lot of dialogue in all the books, like the therapist said. She said so I wanted parents or anyone to be able to say, oh, this is why we do what we do. But many said regards, every book has a favorite part for me, but I mentioned the two that resilience in children and then resilience in adults, across the lifespan, and I enjoyed writing them. I think I've enjoyed writing most of the books.
Speaker 1:I've enjoyed my two.
Speaker 2:Two is two more than most people.
Speaker 1:Craig.
Speaker 2:And it's also the quality. When I was reading this I was very busy and when you sent me the manuscript and I said I really have to get through this because right away after a few pages say I want to read this whole book and I will only write an endorsement if I read an entire book. And yours just was one of those books where I said, boy, this is going to be so helpful to parents and teachers and you address very difficult topics in there. I just was fortunate that when I started with Sam Goldstein and then other opportunities come who knew that I was going to write a book with a minister from Houston? That's a whole story called Reflections on Mortality, insights into Meaningful Living.
Speaker 2:But it came about and sometimes you just don't know. I became friends with this minister in Houston and we asked other clergy and hospice workers and funeral directors what their view on mortality was and how it impacted on their work. So sometimes people look at my work and say, did you know you're going to write a book like that? Who knew I was going to write two books for business and financial advisors? Because the head of a financial institute wrote. So life's journey takes us to different places, Covered it all.
Speaker 1:The lifespan and all the way to mortality is just incredible, and in my news book it brings comfort to parents that they can feel more resilient, and that's what the introduction in the first chapter really about is. You only have to be this side of good enough and let it go. You're going to be fine.
Speaker 2:You can always apologize to your kid, but yes very important in terms of what you said there and I think I don't know if I put in the endorsement, but I think every page was filled with a great deal of empathy for parents and that's so important because we don't have parents to read our works and be more anxious or upset. We want them to feel more confident. They have to do more.
Speaker 1:And they're not doing too much. This has just been exactly what I expected it would be. I was hoping. Just a lovely time together. Again, I want to thank you for inspiring and you've always been very generous of your support of my work and I get to meet a lot of great speakers Since I was younger and would meet people and I'd meet someone and they'd say hi, and that was about it, and you have always just been so generous and I really appreciate that.
Speaker 2:And I must mention, since you mentioned Denver Academy, do you know? I still have a mug from Denver Academy, I don't know how many years ago, so every time I drink coffee from that mug, I think of the experience there.
Speaker 1:It was wonderful and the school's doing great. I served nine years on the board. My wife was on for nine years and all of my head psychologist was on and we went to the opening of their new theater. And it is a $20 million building that is beautiful.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's great.
Speaker 1:When you have students who have different talents than this average student that they're in high school, you get these kids who are in this elegant space. It just lifts them up beyond anything. So I love DA and I've always been a long supporter of the school.
Speaker 2:Well, that mug is still among my prominent mugs.
Speaker 1:That's great. I love it. I'll have to let our headmaster, mark Dorgalski, know that. Bob, thank you so much, and for our listeners, I hope you enjoyed it as well. And, as always, I want to end with things of beauty make me cry. And this story is dedicated to my friend, floyd. Floyd passed away two weeks ago.
Speaker 1:He was one of our longtime guests at our program. He suffered with chronic mental illness. He was a mental health consumer. When he was doing better, he was the van driver and he'd bring people over from one of the programs that we work with and he'd bring everybody out. And he was just this wonderful old time guy and at talent night he read the same poem every year. He wrote a poem about Vicki Carr and she was quite famous back in the day and just always combed his hair. He was always a gentleman, just the sweetest human being.
Speaker 1:I'd go visit him the last three years of life. Unfortunately he was placed in a state-run nursing home, which is so depressing. When I'd go visit him I'm like this is just awful, the surroundings he was in and he couldn't leave. And then there was COVID. But I'd drop off his three favorite things from Apples, black licorice and Butterbacon ice cream and just loved him dearly and we'd try to pick him up and bring him out to our program and take him home.
Speaker 1:The hardest part on the mortality piece, bob, was when I would call down and talk with him on the phone and go visit. But then when he was transferred to the hospital with COVID and where he eventually died, they wouldn't tell me where he was because of NIPPA and I'm like what's, pastor Craig from Prince Pisa? I know we can't tell you so I never got to see him the final time. He brings heartbreak to me. But the one time I remember I was driving him home from our evening together and he started talking about his heritage and he would just talk about all these fascinating things and he grew up in Denver and he said I'm Scottish and German with a soul of an old black man, meg are ever an MLK. And then we bought his activism for MLK back in the 60s.
Speaker 2:And I was struck.
Speaker 1:I was like wow, and it was such a joyful moment. Man who had struggles, that he had dignity and grace and, in my mind, that's resiliency, and for us to all remember that every human being on this planet has inherent dignity and they should be treated that way. So to Floyd, we're all going to be singing for you next Monday night and send our prayers to you in heaven. All right, I want to thank Dr Brooks again for a lovely interview and for our listeners. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend and remember parents. Just relax, you only have to be this side of good enough. Thank you.