Legit Parenting
Legit Parenting
Fourth Season: Parenting in the News. Reflections on Responsibility and Resilience in Parenting
As your ever-curious host Craig Knippenberg, begins season 4 with stories, news and discussions that matter to you as a modern parent. We're going to unpack the potential game-changer that is New York's proposed legislation on safeguarding our kids' digital playground, and why your role in this is more critical than ever.
In the wake of a mother's landmark conviction tied to her son's actions, we find ourselves in a deep reflection on the enormous responsibility resting on our shoulders as parents, especially when mental health red flags appear.
We'll talk about the immeasurable value of capturing and cherishing life's fleeting moments, and how a simple snapshot can become a beacon of hope for those who feel unseen. Join us as we explore these intricate topics, each one weaving into the fabric of our parenting journey.
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, an adoptive 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.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Legit Parenting. I'm your host, craig Nipenberg, along with my producer, sydney Moreau. I guess I want to say happy new year and welcome to season four, which is just mind-blowing. I've had a lot of shows over that time.
Speaker 3:I think we're over 100 shows.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm guessing we are. But yeah, it's been a lot. I took a month off to catch up on some back podcasts and my wife and I had a lovely New Year's week in the Dominican Republic just the two of us. It was fabulous. But then it was all back to work. As many of you out there might relate to this, if you have a husband, you go on trips and we're just hanging out the pool and they had a water polo tournament.
Speaker 2:I decided to relive my water polo past. I was the oldest one out there, by 30, 35 years, all these young men. I trashed my wrist and I've been rehabbing for the last month, but I did stop his shot. That's what I reminded my wife when she told me I was such an idiot. I was like we won too. I was the goalkeeper and we won three to one. That made up for it, but it's not been much fun rehabbing. I guess at some point you got to accept what it is, but I had to do it again Now.
Speaker 2:Needless to say, over the last month I've been collecting a lot of news stories about parenting and the whole stack. I decided to just focus on hope for this episode the ones that bring me hope, and we all have to have hope during trying times. There are a few that are mixed. They're quite disturbing but they have a hopeful end and I think that's one. I want to focus on this first episode of the new year.
Speaker 2:First I want to give a big shout out to Steve Carlton who was on we last recorded talking about parents use of substances. It was just a really fun talk. I loved his twist on the James Bond quote. You don't want your family shaken and stirred because too much consumption of adult products and you've got kids. I just thought that was hysterical and we will have Steve back on and a couple of episodes to talk about teen use of substances. And there's lots of new stuff out, including a piece I just read about marijuana and the impact on youth from marijuana. It is not good. Finally, I want to give a shout out to the Denver Waldorf School. They had me over a couple of weeks ago and I had middle school students first and invited some up for a role play and we role played the brain on social media and it was just fabulous. The kids loved it. They were laughing hysterically. And then for high schoolers we did one on pornography in the brain and that was really a fun talk and got into the realities of the porn industry, the sex trade industry, the ethics of it all behind it and how it's so designed to capture the brain, especially for young men. I've seen more and more of that in the last couple of years since COVID, and makes sense that's what they were doing. Okay, off the top from today's Wall Street Journal. So I just read this a half hour game States propose curbs on social media for teens.
Speaker 2:New York children this is the attorney general. Children and teens are struggling. Their proposal she had. It will protect New York children and will be an example for others to follow. This person, the governor, support a proposal to prohibit social media companies from serving content to minors in the state using algorithms. Less apps such as Instagram, tiktok, first obtain parental consent. So the algorithms they are the bugaboo to the whole thing and that's where you can start on one feed and you go to another feed and, before you know it, you're seeing fees that really are not healthy. They're also blocking restrictions on what apps can send notifications to teen users and what companies do with the data collected from minors. So way to go, new York. I hope many other states will follow and I have another follow up story on that shortly. I've got some bigger news on that one.
Speaker 2:Okay, onto some fun stuff. So a great article and it's called how to Actually Work Out Successfully with your Kids. Love that. And it's got all sorts of yoga exercises, dodge ball throwing, pushing ups with your kids on your back, holding a plank with your kid on your back Love it. I just think it's fabulous. And the kids so many of them are spending so much time on the screens. They got to get out and be more active as Steve parents, and so combining those two is just fabulous.
Speaker 2:Years ago we had a puppy on my blog, adventuredadorg. My wife did a segment of her at the park with our puppy and exercising with the puppy. The puppy would chase her and then she'd do push ups with the puppy and then she'd lay on her back and do squats. Our squats would lay on her back and pick them up Just so much fun For us. Our daughters never wanted to do that with us and I keep trying to get her to go to her's theory, but she's not. But she's doing her own thing and she's gotten in the lifting weights and she has a friend boy that she works out with, so we're happy for her, but no one ever happened as a family.
Speaker 2:Okay next, all boys in middle schools try a different tactic. So we know boys are developmentally about two years behind girls, especially in middle school. They need more time to be active, they need to be more hands on, and this article was about schools around the country that are trying to really give boys a chance to move, to have hands on learning and really change their trajectory, because they have been falling behind girls for years now. And the flashback for me was having my first male teacher in fifth grade and I just loved him. He missed Mr Underwood. It was just so exciting and compelling and he would take some of us on weekends out to an airstrip where he flew remote control planes and we got to take the command of it and fly him and it was really great.
Speaker 2:A couple of little quotes. This one's called investing and well-being. One of these schools, the field school I can't find where it is located, but it's a Barack Obama male leadership academy, a public all school boys for grades six through 12 is in Dallas and is having tremendous success with a 91% graduation rate and the same percentage of students scored proficient on reading compared with the district public school the national average of 52%. So that is fabulous. But really trying to cater to the needs of boys, I've had Michael Gurian support at one of my first books about male gradient endorsement. He's done throng baking work on the needs of boys in education and in our culture for years and years.
Speaker 2:And we do have a very serious problem with young men, particularly of color, who they call it the school to prison pipeline, and they're at high school. It's not working for them. They get in trouble, they get arrested and they end up in prison. So we really need to change that. And also when boys voices. I like this part. We know that females often suffer in some of the science and math classes around middle school and it's because they've long felt that. It's because they're afraid to make a mistake or be embarrassed in front of their, the other peers and the boys. And this one talks about the same effect that these educators say. Middle school boys feel fear to make and learn from mistakes when girls are around. So you don't want to get embarrassed like I was in seventh grade Sunday school class when the teacher had me read out of the Bible, which I don't do, and I still remember the name, jehoshaphat, king Jehoshaphat and I butchered it and this kid next to me said what are you at, dumb ass? And everybody was laughing and I was so embarrassed and I remember going to my mom and I'm not going back and she said if you can teach little kids, if you were, or I'll tell the teacher not to have you read out loud anymore I said I'll go work with little kids. It worked out pretty well, but that was highly embarrassing and from that day forward I understood why God didn't like King Jehoshaphat because of his name. I don't like him either.
Speaker 2:Another exciting story for dads that more dads are using paternity leave, but not as much as they had hoped. So more and more men are taking paternity leave, which is now allowed by federal law, but not all of them are staying for the full time, so they need to limit more. But this article talked about it's good for everyone and I think especially and I remember when my son was little infant and dads need to have bonding time with just the baby. It's great for the vasopressin levels, so those go up. Vasopressin has one enzyme away from oxytocin and women and it's the bonding hormone for men and the more you're with your child. Like my son used to sleep on my chest for nap time and early morning I'd put him on my chest, but we had plenty of time. In the mornings my wife would go to work and I was home in the mornings where it was just him and I to bond. And I had the problem with all so often when both of you at home and the babies crying, the dads honey, I don't know what's going on Mom comes in and can't you see he just needs tension or he's hungry or okay. But you learn from that and dads really need to do that and they had more time to bond with their kids.
Speaker 2:Now, on the bonding side of things, research, there's still adult kids still getting financial help from parents and it's all about the young 20 year olds who can't move out of home and get launched and that's not so good. But they did some surveys on that and obviously for the young adult, 64% said it helped their financial situation and 55% said it was good for their relationship with their parents. So they apparently are enjoying it. It's feeling so independence and the lowest category is their social lives are sucking it and that's an age where you're supposed to be social and outbonding with your peers, because you'll survive with your age group, not your parents age group. On the parent side, not so great on their financial situation, so they're shelling out the books for the kid they thought would be gone, but 74% reported an improved relationship with their kid. So they're living at home, but it sounds like everybody's having a pretty good time, but not for the pocketbook. Now this one, this next one's Bidding the News just a couple days ago and this could be a game changer and I really support it.
Speaker 2:The sad and the ugly part is this is the shooting that happened in Oxford High School near Detroit a while back, where a student had a gun in his backpack. The parents were. The school was concerned about some of his drawings and what he was talking about. They met with the parents, showed him a picture that the son had driven in math class and had handguns drawn and words that said blood everywhere. My thoughts won't stop, help me. The parents refused to take him home to get psychological help and didn't tell school officials they had recently bought him a gun, resummeling the one in the drawing or searches backpack for the weapon. After 15 minutes the parents cut off the meeting with the school and left. A couple hours later he shot and killed several people. So the parents were they actually fled. They took off One seat. Their son was arrested.
Speaker 2:They also have a report about how the son had reached out to his parents about hearing voices and seeing things. He was basically becoming psychotic and his dad and one statement is dead. So suck it off. And then email text messages between mother and son months before the shooting about a professed his belief that a demon was inside the house throwing objects at him. There was also some I read earlier. When this first happened, I shared with his mother that he bought some ammunition and she was like giving it a thumbs up, the mother and father being tried separately. The mother two days ago was convicted of manslaughter on four counts.
Speaker 2:That's the first time in our country's history that parents been held accountable in a mass shooting. So we know, known for a long time and if any of you have 16 year olds are out driving the car, they get in an accident and cause serious damages. Parents are held responsible. You can lose your house. That's why I, when my son started driving, I got one of those umbrella policies for even more enhanced coverage in case something were to happen. So parents are held accountable for their children and their actions financially.
Speaker 2:This is the first time that somebody's being held accountable for an en masse shooting and I personally couldn't agree more. I am all about. You just have to be a good enough parent. You don't have to be perfect. Just average is fine. Your kids can be fine.
Speaker 2:But this is a case where the parents were way below good enough. They didn't get help for their kids. Because parents get help for their kids when their kid doesn't even know they need help. They don't. I saw a young man last night, 17. First time I met with the parents, they told me a slew of stuff that I meet with a kid. He's like I don't know why I'm here, everything's fine, my parents over exaggerate. So I had to work hard. I worked until extra 20 minutes with them to get them hooked into trying some counseling, which he agreed to. But this has to change. Kids have to be aware of mental health issues and they should with guns. Not guns in the house, not buying your kid a gun if they're struggling and at the age that they can handle that. And this was a case where that shouldn't have happened. Final quote it's hard to charge someone for something they didn't do, but in reality, doing nothing is doing something. So when you go to the default to do nothing, you are doing something, in this case with very tragic results. We'll see what happens with the father and his trial.
Speaker 2:Now, this one is hopeful, but a bit of a joke. This is a couple of weeks ago. Meta will tighten teen user filters and I read this to the kids at the Moldorf school Teen accounts, that is, accounts under 18 users, based on the birth date entered during sign-up, will automatically be placed into the most restrictive contents lettings, oh joy. And the kids all laughed and they're like whoever puts in their real age. And one said to me her brother or something, so her Instagram or something, it was like happy birthday and she showed her birthday and she was like her brother was like that shows your birthday like five years earlier than you were born and she said, yeah, that's what I put in. So that's just bogus. Anyway, also know real quick, they're targeting minors. Social media companies are going for younger and younger kids. Last year they made $11 billion in advertising for minors $11 billion from your children. And we're not talking about teens. We're talking about kids eight, nine, 10.
Speaker 2:I was on a podcast with war attorney, the social institute. The social institute is an amazing organization that teaches teens about healthy social media use and she had me on one of their. It was the Brain podcast, which hopefully they'll be posting soon. We'll get it up. But I talked to her. She said what are you envisioning 20 years from now? And I said I do find more and more teens starting to become aware of their usage of social media and technology, how much they're on it. They clearly understand the time suck. Even this young man last night realized how he gets on something and it's two hours go by and he's been sitting there scrolling through Instagram the entire time. And he said I don't even really like it that much, but it is just so addictive and I think this younger generation will hopefully have a little more insight into that. But I also hope that we hold the companies accountable, that our government does more for that. That's my vision and always you're educating your kids.
Speaker 2:The three main points that I shared at Waldorf and all my lectures is teaching students that first, they're the product. They might be looking for products online, but really it's their data that's being bought and traded and sold. The companies want them, they want their product, they want their time and they're being taken advantage of. Secondly is how their brain gets hijacked. So I do that a brain-braised role-play on that. And thirdly, how you can be a target. You can be a target of sex distortion, catfishing, all sorts of scams, and there are plenty of people out there doing that. So my hope for the kids in the future is they have a little better understanding and then we get it under control.
Speaker 2:Now, on that front, this was back February 1st, picture of Mark Zuckerberg before the state ju the federal judiciary committee, hearing on online child exploitation on Capitol Hill in Washington. So they got together all these social media heads before the senators and the senators went after them. If you get a chance to look it up and listen to some of the clips, it's incredible, and one of the senators demanded that Mark Zuckerberg turn around to all the parents in the audience and this is an amazing. There's two amazing photos on the front page All these parents holding up pictures of their kids who died because of suicide cutting, eating disorders fueled by social media. Now Zuckerberg had the goal to say there's no evidence that social media use leads to suicide. That's bullshit. There's plenty of data that shows social media use. It's just linked to higher rates of depression and anxiety. When you mix that with videos on how to buy different chemicals to kill yourself, how to make a news, that's a pretty direct correlation. It's the depression that causes that and then the know-how of how to do it. But one of the senators had Zuckerberg in the pictures and turned around to the audience apologizing to the parents. He didn't take really responsibility, but he was apologizing.
Speaker 2:And the most saddest picture I think I've ever seen in my life is this mother who was in the audience with a photo of her young daughter, who was maybe 16, 17, gorgeous girl standing in a smiling with a photo next to her horse and her mother's holding her picture, and she looks as gaunt and hollowed-eyed as I've ever seen. Her eyes just look like they came in for eternity. Just a brutal picture of a mom and lost her child and it will never be the same again. It will never recover from that and it's time that we started doing something. So I hope the judiciary keeps moving and we hold them accountable. Another quick one on hope I love.
Speaker 2:In my first book I stamp it with make your empathy a verb, that our brains are wired to feel empathy. You want your kids to encourage empathy and you want to show acts of kindness. You want them to make that a verb. And my second book I talk about how the only thing you could pass on to your kids in the research is kindness. If you're a kind parent, you're kind of the people, you're kind of your neighbors, you're grocery store workers, your kids will inherit that from you and they will be kind. And this one part I love it. It's addictive. When we are kindly, the system and our brains associate with the reward light up the same ones active with each chocolate. They make us want to do the same same awesome thing again. And that is our empathy system mixed with our desire and pleasure system. And so we internally have a desire to be social creatures, to bond with others, to help other people. And when you match that desire with doing something and then seeing the pleasure in the other person's face, your brain lights up with dopamine. Now, sadly, that's the same system hijacked by social media companies, pedographers, you name it. That system gets hacked everywhere you go.
Speaker 2:One other quick one. If you have a teen driver out there, apparently you can get these. They have them all over them. I'm sure you're in a trans company driver's ed classes. Some pediatricians are using this. They have a virtual test driving machine where the kid gets in this machine and it shows them driving through crowded streets and pedestrians and stuff and they give them the test to see how well they hold up in the assessments and they found that the teens were quite confident before they did it and not so confident afterwards. So that's a great alternative if you're a parent out there and your kids starting to drive is to learn how to drive safely and do one of these assessments, and actually they're talking about making it a part of routine preventative adolescent health care. So imagine if every doctor had one of those machines. The kids get in there and they can figure out that, yeah, you need to pay more attention, your speed and the distance of cars and making left turns. So my daughter learned the hard way on that. After four accidents she lost the car and now, at 18, she's driving much better. And I do want to give out a shout to my daughter, lily. She finished high school early a couple of weeks ago and now she's finishing up her associate's degree in cosmetology hopefully by June, and she just needs to get more hours in doing nails and hair to graduate, but we'll be graduating certified. So big shout out to her. She's come along with some very dark days a couple of years ago and just so proud of her.
Speaker 2:Another neuroscience report, and this one, gives me hope too, because we're understanding the brain even more and more. One of the things I talk when I'm talking with students with social media is if it's not making you feel good, turn it off, turn it off. Why would you keep watching something if it's making you more and more depressed? This science report from G Davis, which I spoke there once the Brain Institute amazing research they do explains why some and this was done with females can't get off, even when they're not feeling good, and basically it has to do with rumination.
Speaker 2:Now, all humans, when we have a negative experience, we want to ruminate it about a little bit. Some people ruminate a little and they move on. They figure it out and go. Maybe they're just having a bad day, I'll just blow that off. Or maybe they're just jealous right of me, and that's why they said that Other people might ruminate a little longer, and some people what they found. The participants ruminate a lot and for those who ruminate a lot or too much, it goes deeply to the part of the brain where you have your self-concept, your sense of self, and that deep rumination gets internalized with negative feedback.
Speaker 2:I'm no good. I'm no good. I'm not that. I'm not that. I can't do that. I can't do that. I can't do that. I can't do that. I can't do that. I can't do that, I can't do that. What we're hoping is perhaps and this is just new stuff they just invented some new machine to read. The actual research was done 10 years ago, but they finally found it using an fMRI scan. They could actually see the areas in the brain from that study 10 years ago and analyze it. And we're on our way towards brain science to help teens understand okay, this is what's going on for you. You're not the person that should be staying on. You should be getting off because internally it's destroying you. Now we know that's a hard lesson for all kids, even those of you with younger children, and your kid comes home and they say Johnny did this to me.
Speaker 2:You often help not say maybe he was just having a bad day. I met with a little kindergartener the other day, just the sweetest child who's struggling with some of the other children who are more rambunctious than he is and they like to push and they like to hit and he takes it personally like they're going after him. And I said and I have this big stuff, tigger, in my office that actually bounces. It's the battery's dead now, but this thing bounces up and down. And I said, tigger, right, some kids' brains are more like Tigger and they're not trying to hurt you, they're not trying to be mean to you, it's just that they're very active and they like to bounce around and they run into you sometimes. And then I taught him a few strategies on how to handle the other kids who were Tiggers and he just had so much fun. It was great, just a great visit. So hopefully neuroscience will continue leading the way for us and helping our kids with social media.
Speaker 2:This last story, and then I want to get onto Things of Beauty. I really was touched by this one and the picture I'll explain it to you is all these portraits of teenagers dressed up their hair, done up in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver, and what this photographer who did. She went to a homeless shelter for teens Most of these kids are just shattered in life and she brought a hairstylist in makeup men and women new clothes and then she photographed them and posted them in the Art Museum and talked to them how meaningful it was for the kids that they could see themselves differently. So you have that internal image of yourself and then we all look in the mirror and hopefully you're seeing something better in yourself. But often we go with the negative oh, that looks so good, I gained another pound or whatever it is. And these kids on the outside are messed most of the time and for them to see themselves all dolled up, looking handsome and sharp, was so deeply meaningful for them to feel like they could be different.
Speaker 2:And the one analogy I'll use, or corollary, is at our program at my church for mental health consumers. One year we bought a photographer in, set up a little studio. We didn't have all the clothes and makeup and everything, but we had some co-homes and everybody got their self-portrait taken. My friend Sonny headed it up and they just were so amazed they couldn't believe it, because if you're a person living on the streets and boarding home with schizophrenia, nobody's taking your picture. You feel worthless, like you don't belong, you don't fit in, you're worth nothing. So to the woman doing that for those teens just was so amazing and it helped those kids, as I quoted, to feel more resilient, like they could bounce back. Isn't that a cool story, sonny?
Speaker 3:I think that's great and it correlates to a study that I heard a long while ago. But kids that have photographs of themselves in their house with their family have a higher self-esteem. Yeah yeah, which makes sense because it's your visual connect to your belief. Also, those photos are happy.
Speaker 2:Exactly, yeah, like everyone is happy, and especially the natural ones. Sometimes those family self-portraits when you have the professional come in, we have one from when I was a kid and it was kind of staged. It didn't really capture the quality of our family, but we've got pictures of the kids all over the place grandkids, everybody just hung out for a friend, it means you belong.
Speaker 2:Right, you matter, you belong and that's your group, that's your family and they love you. And some of those from trips. You're all on it and then you have the memories of the trips and my whole office is filled with photos of my kids and my wife and I.
Speaker 3:And I've noticed as my kids have gotten older, often their memories are associated with the photos they see. They can recall that. They don't recall memories of where there aren't photographs, but they relive that through those photographs. So it is really important and you think about it. This is a sidetrack, but all our photos now are on our phone.
Speaker 2:I know, and yesterday. So I finally decided to get my wife for Valentine's Day. It dawned on me we had this lovely picture in the DR of us standing in the ocean which was on my phone. We sent it to my brothers and my son sent it out. And just sitting in the phone, and then I thought I'm going to blow that up and I went to the camera store Mike's camera here in Colorado, baltimore. I couldn't figure out how to use the machine. The guy had had to help me two or three times but I got it and I'm picking up today and then going to frame shopping. But you're right, it's important. You had to process film. You would get a maid and then you'd do Put them in albums. Put them in albums. We got so many photo albums. I miss that.
Speaker 3:You wonder what's going to happen like that. I'm as guilty of it too. Thousands of photographs that I don't print anymore, right, yeah, we rarely do. What will happen with this generation?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You wonder, think about that, but I, it's crazy.
Speaker 2:I was such a big video dad. I always had the latest camcorders my mom too. My pro pros and I do all these films and stuff and when my son was younger we'd pull him on watch. I mean, he was our archiver for the photo albums. But when we adopted Lily, that was when the phone thing started and we don't print them out anymore, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we have a really fun tradition. I recommend it to everybody. My ex-husband, his father, for father's day. His request always was make me a father's day video and this we started it when my son was so my son's 21, so we started at 20.
Speaker 3:I think I was pregnant in the first one and what we would do is you collect clips and videos. This is pre phones, but we would collect clips and videos and then my husband. Then he would take all of those and he would combine them and he would set it to music and he would tell the story of the year through this video. So he still does it and he actually I've been remarried and I have a kid from another marriage and he even takes those. So he'll say he'll text me and say I'm putting the father's day to video.
Speaker 3:Send me all your videos and photos and so I have this video scrapbook for 20 years includes all of it, but it's set and my kids love watching it. They still like it. It's like a very integral part of their life and it was such a good tradition and now it's so easy to make videos on your phone and put it together. I would recommend it to anybody because it takes all of that stuff that's off your phone and puts it somewhere and we put it on DVDs and I have a stack of 20 DVDs on my but it's a really fun tradition that we started, but important yeah 10 years ago for Christmas, my mother took all our home videos from the old reel cameras which we would try to watch, but my dad could never get the film in the projector and then it would tear and rev and my dad be like God sometimes.
Speaker 2:You'd see him sometimes but he had them put on a DVD desk. I don't know what was it before DVD. I guess that's what Blu-ray or whatever, and that was our Christmas gift. It was so fun watching those old videos.
Speaker 3:I have some for my grandmother. Same thing, there's no sound, but they're just so cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't have sound either. Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 3:Three sounds, some are black and white too. Yeah, yeah, a lot of them Right.
Speaker 2:This reminded me this year is always on Christmas Eve. I got my dad's CD out of the bank and played his recording of singing oh, holy Night in the Lord and I just cry, yeah. So here's to you, dad, still in my heart. We still listen to you sing. Okay, that's a perfect transition to things of beauty. These are a couple of just special ones that really touched my heart Of the holidays.
Speaker 2:I talked to one of my former kids that I see at the office who's now a young man and thriving in Los Angeles. He's got a great job in the sporting industry. He was a collegiate athlete during COVID and I remember talking one time he's really struggling during COVID and what was going on with the sport and his future of playing basketball, and I talked about the concept of moving forward. You have to keep moving forward and he actually he told me on the phone he got that tattooed on his wrist and he said it's the greatest thing you've ever told me and I use it all the time. I look at my wrist and I remind myself to keep moving forward. Now I have a pair of socks with the forward arrow on them from Lance Armstrong's podcast called forward to remind myself to keep moving forward. I didn't get a tattooed, but that's how the young kids do it, so you get a tattoo of what's inspirational and he's been using it. This next one I just laughed and was so meaningful.
Speaker 2:I heard from one of my old dads a family I worked with and three kids, and it's a great example if you just have to be this side of good enough and you do what you have to do. And he had two, two young, especially the middle one were very active little girls. And he said I can remember trying to get her out of the car, get her up in the morning and going, and she just couldn't. So I threw her in her car and in her underwear and take her clothes and we get to the car pool line. She'd have to change there and get trust at the car pool line and I'm cracking up and I'm like, yep, that's just how I remember. And he said she's now an engineer and just thriving, is doing great at very willing college and making a good living as an engineer. And he just thanked me for all I did for their family, which was just really special to me. And finally I want to end with a quote by CS Lewis.
Speaker 2:So New Year's Eve, we all make resolutions and I decided I want to see more things of beauty that make me cry. I want to slow down and absorb more beauty in the world. And that relates to my favorite philosopher, albert North Whitehead. He was the inventor of what's called process philosophy and he talked about how, if we can just slow down, the universe provides us with lures to beauty that the universe is holding out like fishing lures saying come this way, this will bring about beauty. And that's my resolution is to try to just slow down and look for beauty. And I loved New Year's Eve where a church and the minister read a quote or mentioned CS Lewis about beauty and I could just feel it shine inside of me.
Speaker 2:Here's how it goes. We do not want merely to see beauty, we want merely. We do not want merely to see beauty, we want something else which can hardly be put into words to be united with the beauty we see, to pass it on, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it and to become part of it. And that's my resolution for the New Year is to bathe in beauty and notice it more and take time to appreciate it. There's no better ways to find beauty than in your children, sometimes A teenage beauty thing. That gets hard sometimes but there's still moments where I get glimpses of beauty, but especially when they're younger you can just find so much beauty and feel connected in a sense of oneness.
Speaker 2:It's a very whitehead. I had kind of a Buddhist philosophy. He wasn't religious, but very much the sense of oneness and being connected. So that is my goal to keep finding more beauty in the world because it's out there, despite all the hardships, all the stuff going on with this New Year and politics and wars. We need to find more beauty. So I hope you and your family, your spouse if you have one and your kids take time to look for beauty, find it. It's all around. You Just got to look. Thank you very much for tuning in. We've got a couple of guests coming up in the next month or so that I'm very excited about. If you enjoyed the program, please share it with a friend. And until then, until next time, remember you just have to be the side of good enough.