Legit Parenting
Legit Parenting
Navigating Modern Challenges in Parenting and Education: Empathy, Social Media, and Cell Phones in the news
Social media isn't just a pastime for teenagers—it's a battleground for social ranking and self-worth. We reflect on old-school methods of social comparison and how they have been drastically amplified online, influencing youth mental health. We explore the contentious issue of cell phone usage in schools, highlighting initiatives that aim to foster organic socialization and reduce phone dependency.
Welcome to Legit Parenting, where imperfect parents build resilient 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 this side of good enough. Join us and we will show you how. I'm your host, craig Nippenberg. 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 dad, 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 Newpenberg, along with my producer, sidney Moreau. It's been a few weeks since we've been recording. I have been on an absolute whirlwind of lectures, the book and just loving it. I want to give a shout out to the Denver Academy Parents Group for having me on talking about just good enough parenting, especially when you have an exceptional child. And also the University of Denver, the LEAP program, which is the Learning Effectiveness Program. University of Denver, the LEAP program, which is the Learning Effectiveness Program. It's DU, university of Denver's, the first school in the nation to start a learning program to assist students. And a good friend of mine is there and he hosts an annual conference called ADD Adventure. And again, my address was for the parents about how difficult it is when you have an exceptional job with ADHD. And also last Monday I started so it's been two weeks now.
Speaker 2:I started back in the classroom at my old school, st Ann's, our psychologist, anna, who I trained and took my position when I retired. She went on maternity leave and so I'm back subbing in for the rest of the year and I'm absolutely loving it. It's been so amazing. The kids are just so generous with their hugs and their oh, mr Nippenberg, it's so glad to have you back and it's just been great. And yesterday I had the funnest time teaching kindergartners about their nonverbal system and how we understand what others are feeling by looking at their faces or their hand gestures. And I had them all look at me with a sad face and, man, some of those kids had the saddest look on their face you can imagine and I explained how, when I see that, my thinks, if I was moving those muscles like they are.
Speaker 2:I'd feel sad. Therefore, they're sad. Then we talked about the next step, which is and this was I described empathy is when you notice someone having a feeling and, like someone on the playground who's sad, your job is to go over and include them and bring them into the play to have some fun together. And that's what empathy is. Empathy is noticing others' emotions and then making a verb, doing something about it, inviting the other person in. But the kids just loved it. I think the teacher just looked at his watch as the kids. It was really cute. I think the teacher was looking at his watch as the kids. It was really cute.
Speaker 2:And lots of stuff with social media. I just follow so much but I don't have time to post. So today's show we're just going to catch up in the news and it's all related to social media and the news and particularly how that intersects with my new book, shame-free Parenting Raising Resilient Families in Times of Hardship like COVID Guns and Social Media. First I want to give a big thanks to Gina from Trauma Dharma University, who was on our last show and talking about kids with trauma or attachment issues. I loved when I was talking to parents about having a pause and she reached a new level on that one. She said take a 90-second pause because you really got to get your ducks in a row before you respond. And then I love this line connection first request second. So kids with trauma and attachment issues need to feel connected first before you ask them to do things, because they lack that connection that other children have automatically. And for her she fits perfectly. She is a mom on a mission and there is nothing stronger than a mom on a mission. At the ADHD conference at DU I talked about the history of kind of ADHD advocacy support awareness here in Colorado all the way back to the 1980s and we had an amazing organization called ADDH which is the ADD advocacy group. I was the chair of it for a while and we had hosted conferences. We had 20 support groups going on in the state and the driver behind it was a woman named Pamela Murray, along with two other moms, pat Kale and Amy Hughes, and they drove that thing. Pamela actually testified before Congress to make ADHD a handicapping condition for special education for students. So if your child has ADHD they can qualify for what's called a 504 plan or getting an IEP, which is a lot of process but it can stand alone, as we need this for our child.
Speaker 2:Okay, into the news. Tiktok's everywhere in the news if you've been following it the last couple days. Congress just passed a bill about a potential ban on TikTok. They want it sold, they don't want China to own it, concerns about stealing our data and also concerns about the mental health of our youth. That's a tough one because you have to balance your personal rights for people who are making a living on TikTok. There's a lot of people that are doing that. That's how they get supported. My daughter was all riled up yesterday about it and she said that's where I get my news and I'm like, oh God, what TikTok news. I can't stand it. But she does and she has a lot of fun on it and friends and all this thing will help her with her nail and hairstyling business. So there is that side of things.
Speaker 2:But then you have to look at what about with kids and teens young teens and children On that. That creates a lot of issues for them and it's extremely addictive. The way I think about it is would we let a sixth grader drive a car? No, we would. They're not mature enough. Would we let them buy cigarettes no. Would we let them buy a vape patch no. Would we let them buy alcohol? No, because their brains aren't ready to handle it and the stuff on TikTok can be very damaging to a young child or a teen.
Speaker 2:I know Jonathan Haidt's book just came out about anxious generation, which is all about social media. I haven't had a chance to read it. I've read some reviews of it. He really is talking about wait on the smartphone until high school and no social media until you're 16. So the idea would be like a driver's license you don't get social media Now. Keeping your younger kids from getting on social media, that's a monumental task and I don't know of any parent that, unless my IT guy, glenn Worthing at our school. He does my IT for me, he's got two twins in the preschool and he'll be able to figure it out, but the rest of us, we're not ready to figure that out. Also, tiktok for some of the news, the European Union they're going after them for their designs that are particularly addictive, and the new product for TikTok is called TikTok Lite and it's for people with poor internet connections but still is incredibly addictive. So we'll see what happens with that over the next couple months and maybe where Congress stands and others on banning TikTok. I just wish they'd have restraints on kids.
Speaker 2:Now, in a very interesting twist related to social media it's an article in the Wall Street Journal the other day is the fight against online child exploitation is hampered by technology law, so this is sad. So there's been this huge increase in the number of complaints, videos, pictures of children naked, engaged in sexual activities that people reported to this national database and the only way they can receive it is the sender has to send like a flash drive with the content on it and mail it to them. Now they, in return, have to be very careful about opening it or sharing it with their other researchers or people that are researching it, because that's online distribution of pornography. So we got all these increases of exploitation of children. One of these is just incredible. This cyber tip line was started in 1998. It handled 4,400 reports of unmarried child sexual exploitation Within a decade. It is handling more than 100,000 reports annually. In 2023, the number hit 36 million. Can you imagine? That's 36 million people who took the time to send in a disc or a flash and make a report about exploitation of children online and they're stuck by the laws because they're cumbersome and they can't do it through tech because that's sharing child pornography Apparently. Congress maybe in May, maybe right now is looking at changing what's called safe harbor laws for minors and those who report it, so you wouldn't get in trouble for sending it in to the tip line electronically and then they can access the internet and AI to work or combating it.
Speaker 2:Now this second one. I just love this one. Ranking leads to teens. So if you remember, middle school or high school, kids are constantly comparing themselves to others. Where do I rank? Where do I sit? Who's the hottest? In fact, I still have this explicit memory in sixth grade of a note being passed around and the note came into my hands from the girl behind me and I opened it up and it said the hottest boys in the sixth grade class and I looked at it. I was number two and I was like, yeah, I'm right up at number two, that's awesome. But then I looked down and my best friend was like last and I just thought I can't share this note. So I just wadded it up and stuck it in my pocket and threw it away after class. I just couldn't do that to him. It in my pocket and threw it away after class. I just couldn't do that to him. So that's the old school stuff passing notes, and when you find out or whatever somebody spreads the rumors. But at the end of the day you go home, you're free from all that bullshit, and the next day someone else is at the bottom of the list or someone else is getting canceled or shamed.
Speaker 2:Kids have been doing that forever and it is part of their natural brain development. There's really no way around it, because their social brains explode at puberty and they're trying to figure out how to influence others and how to be popular, right, so they do all these really horrible things to each other. In middle school we had slam books, which is you could write any horrible thing you wanted to in somebody's notebook and they had to give it to you if you were playing the game. That was all part of that middle school experience, and then, hopefully, you grow out of it. There is this deep-seated need for humans to feel like they belong to the group. When you're younger, it's you have a family to protect you. As you hit puberty middle school, high school then it's the group of friends, and if you're not included in the group, you feel exiled and that triggers our very primitive brain, which is when it felt exiled, it was in terror, because you would probably die trying to live on your own. So being part of the group is essential to that stage of development. So it was for the high school kids.
Speaker 2:I was talking to one last night a junior in high school, brilliant kid about how you have to be a narcissist when you're a teenager, and every parent of a teen will say they're so narcissistic. Everything relates to them. It's all about them. They give, they take, they never give back. And I'm like, yeah, it's true, it's really irritating, but it's essential because if they weren't, they would just stay at home and would never leave, and they'd never create families or get jobs. They would just stay dependent on you and your existence would come to an abrupt end. Now this article is about how you have that same dynamic, but now it's online. So that deep-seated need to fit in is just capture and keeps these kids online 24-7, because they want to know where they stand with the other kids and at some point maturity sets in. But there are some really vulnerable years.
Speaker 2:I'll read you a couple of quotes. This one even without Snapchat, the app can show teens where they stand with friends via emojis, so you don't have to show a list. It's through emojis, which I don't know if I've ever done an emoji in my life. I know what they are on my phone, but I'm not really into emojis. I use that thumbs up thing to say, yeah, I got your message, we're good, so I don't have to touch back.
Speaker 2:This occurs if two people are on each other's private eight-person best friend. So yeah, we have best friends. Kids used to rake who's my best friend, who's second? That's an old third-grader's. We always have a talk, annual talk about we don't rate people right, but the middle school kids or high school kids do a lot of that. But now it's online, so it's 24-7. It's out there. A yellow heart indicates besties status. These two have sent the most snaps to each other. If they're besties for at least two consecutive months, they graduate to super BFF, indicated by two red hearts.
Speaker 2:This is the algorithm tracking people. This is not the kids. This is the algorithm tracking people. This is not the kids. This is the algorithm taking over and it keeps track of how long you're in a bestie status and then you get moved up. It's like my frequent flyer mileage card. Right, you get enough and they go. You're in platinum level, right. And now I got more status because I'm in platinum level. Because I'm in platinum level, I've yet to get the free club thing, other than a few guest invites to the private airline clubs. I haven't reached that status ever and I'd love to because they're quite lovely, but it's just so crazy. So you have all these teams who have struggled with historical stuff that is now absolutely on steroids and the algorithms take it from them and they keep ranking. I wonder what happens after your super BFFs, what the next level is. Sydney, what do you think?
Speaker 3:I don't remember. I don't know my oldest, who's 21 now. I can remember he would do Snapchat and it was called Streaks Like I can't break my streak, so they that. I don't know if that's still, I could ask my daughter, but I don't know if that's messages back and forth. But they're not like a selfie picture, they're just like this random part of their face usually.
Speaker 3:It's just this really weird thing. And then they write one line of text back and forth to each other like store. I don't know what they write, but I don't know. I mean, you remember when we were kids, though, you would get the best friend necklace.
Speaker 2:Oh, we didn't have those. The heart, the broken. We were too poor in Missouri. We didn't have that. We just had our blue jeans and T-shirts.
Speaker 3:But it was like how we did stat you wore the necklace with your best friend. Yeah, and it fit perfectly with it, yeah. You bought him at Spencer's Gifts.
Speaker 2:It was Spencer's. Not only did you get it at Claire's, claire's has all of that.
Speaker 2:But it's kind of the same, but it is the same thing, it's the same and these are very permanent drives, but at the end of the school day you weren't home and you were inundated with it all night, with people sending more messages You're my bestie, or now you're not getting canceled. And when you get canceled, that really drives you to check even more. That just throws you into tizzy and you have to keep checking and checking. But maturity sets in and I want to read this quote from this young man. He said me and my best friend recently got bestie status on Snapchat and we celebrated. He says but then we were like do we really need that external validation from a platform to tell us we're best friend? Now, that's maturity and that usually doesn't happen to maybe junior seniors in high school sort of realize. Do we really need this external validation for who we are?
Speaker 2:That young man I was talking to him last night. I said man, you're so focused on all these other thoughts about other people and on your social media that is keeping you from developing who you want to be. That's the next step in your life. And I gave him a homework assignment. I said it said at the top who do I want to be a year from now? Because he'll be graduating high school and he wants to go to school in England and I'm like that's, I want you to fill it out for me, every aspect of your life, who do you want to be? At any time you're tempted to get involved in social drama and all this stuff, I want you to think well then, help me be that person. If it's not going to help me be that person, don't do it. Hopefully he can exercise some impulse control, I don't know. When I talked to him about studying for fondles ahead of time and having a plan, he said, yeah, I make a plan, but 30 minutes later I forget it. I said, okay, we'll just keep working at it. Okay.
Speaker 2:Now the other thing coming up and I'm writing an article on this right now for the National Association of Social Workers about the correlation between gun violence on social media. And there's been this huge increase. Our country has the highest rate of gun-violent deaths for children. It's the number one cause of any other affluent country in the world, which is just abysmal. And so they looked at all this increase in shootings and then they compared that to the rise of social media. The rise of social media. Now there's no hard data saying, yes, social media is causing that or all the guns we have in our country is causing that, but what they have determined is that it really puts things on steroids.
Speaker 2:So in the old days I can remember I was at a public middle school one of the first in the country and two guys would get into a beef and out at the bus corral where you get on your buses, they'd square off with each other like they're ready to fight and you'd have 500 kids surrounding them going fight, fight, fight and sometimes they would Half the time they didn't, or the dean would hustle out and grab them and take them away. They never would boo or whatever. And you got on your bus and you weren't home and him away. They never got booed or whatever. And you got on your bus and you weren't home and that was it.
Speaker 2:With social media there's so much more pressure. So think of those two kids in that bus car. Now they got people yelling fights, so they got to show they can stand up for themselves. They got to be strong right and throw a fist or two and they're hoping not. Roll a fist or two and they're hoping not. Or they may be worried about what if I get whooped right. But you got to show face right. You got to save face or credibility. You got to save your cred right. After the day it's over and the next day it's two other kids in the busker. It's other drama. It just passes quickly. But with the social media they're finding more and more. That's starting on. Things like Snapchat or X is a big one. They use and then challenge the other person. Now the other person is oh my God, thousands of people are watching this. I have to protect my credibility. I have to show a force, have to protect my credibility. I have to show a force. And they go back and forth until one of them shows up and knows they're having a family picnic or high school party and just start shooting and then you've got. Maybe they get the other kid they were mad at, but a lot of times they get innocent victims in these mass shootings and it's just the kids don't know how to back down, how to save face without having to pull out a gun.
Speaker 2:I read a story about an interesting one, about a young man. He said I just carry bullets to school in my pocket, even though that's against the rules. He said I don't have a gun, but if I pull the bullets out and twiddle them in my hand. All the other guys think I have one. So that was his strategy to get around it. You're like that is just so messed up, but that's how he resolved it.
Speaker 2:Another story of a young man who was getting bullied and threatened to be bullied and they told him to meet him at some park and he took a gun. He bought one. He got one from a friend park and he took a gun. He bought one, got one from a friend and as soon as he realized he was outnumbered he just fired in the air to scare him off. He did hit one of the kids with the butt of the gun and then was arrested and now he's in the system. But it is just really messed up. And the whole guns and the social media is not a good combination. Oh God, my social media is not a good combination.
Speaker 2:Okay, now this last one. This one's for you parents. It just drove me nuts reading this. Okay, how many of you Sidney, you're included, I'll include myself have an urge at some times to text your kids.
Speaker 2:For various reasons, you feel a need to text them. It might be to pick them up, wear to meet. Don't forget the way you leave early for the orthodontist appointment. I texted my daughter last night. She was going out with some friends and I had just talked with her before she left. I already shot a text saying your hair just looks so lovely tonight and she was like oh thanks, dad, really sweet. So we all have that urge. Now the question is what if your urge is during the school day? Should you be texting your kid at the school day and do you really want your kid checking their phones during the school day?
Speaker 2:And this article is called. Schools Want to Ban Phones, but Parents Are the Obstacle. So around the country, in districts where they've instituted no phone rules, or you lock your phone up in these little special zip lock bags, basically, and you're not able to use it unless you get permission from a teacher and you have to call from the office. And parents are fighting that because they want constant connections with their kids, they want to make sure they're safe and they want to attend to their needs. And it's counterintuitive to what your job is as a parent of a high school or a middle school or especially high school.
Speaker 2:Your number one job is to help them be independent, that when they forget their homework, they forget their band instrument, they forget their jockstrap for soccer, whatever it is. They have to learn how to promise you. Now, if they got a phone and they know they can just reach out to you and say, hey, I forgot my chocolate, please can you bring them by? They will, and that keeps them from problem solving or facing up to the coach that they forgot it or blowing a French Pericles, whatever. I don't know if I'd want to borrow somebody's jock shirt. That's gross. But I don't even know if they use them anymore. We have compression shorts for us men nowadays that's a long gone thing. But you really have to give them the independence and by being available 24-7 or reaching out to them it really hampers with independence and them being able to stand on their feet and learn how to handle things.
Speaker 2:What they talked about parental disc had told them in these districts. One was here in Colorado, in Brush Colorado. They were going to take them all away and your parents put up a fit. So they came up with the idea of you have to have permission and you do it from the office. Now I like that because in the old days at my school, if you had to call for a certain reason, you had to go to the main office and use the landlord right Versus just constantly texting during the middle of the day for this or that. It also left leeway for exceptional students. So I see many kids who have had trauma for exceptional students. So I see many kids who have had trauma. They have anxiety disorders, they have autism spectrum and for those kids they do need times during the day to reach out to a parent because they're feeling overwhelmed and they need some reassurance, and that's just fine. But it has to be compartmentalized. It can't be from the classroom any time, sneaking in the bathroom over and over 20 times a day. It has to have some compartmentalization to it.
Speaker 2:Common Sense Media reports. Teens use smartphones for a median of 43 minutes during the school days, said the report, with primary talent being social media and messaging apps. Parents are often the ones texting their kids and this woman, a teacher, says there seems to be a quick disconnect with the parents. So the parents want to focus on education and what their kids are learning at school, but they also want them to have access to the phones, which is really quite improbable and would be impossible to do Now. Other reasons, and I'm mentioning this. School shootings have raised parents' anxiety. As a mother of three, I'm certainly as worried as any other parent about school violence.
Speaker 2:School safety experts say that using phones during an emergency can endanger a kid. Ringing or buzzing phones can give away the location of a child who is trying to hide from an intruder. That's a cold suck, isn't it? Sorry, that's an old expression, or it could distract students from following instructions from school personnel. The other piece, and I was just talking about this the kids need to learn independence and they also need to learn how to use their frontal lobe their precedent. They their precedent how to remember what to take to school, to be organized, to grab their homework on the way out, to take whatever they need, to get gas in the car before they run out, or to remember they're getting picked up early. And if you're the one constantly prompting them on these things, they don't have to learn how to do it themselves. So you're really doping down the development of their prefrontal cortex, which learns from experience, and you learn from experience from trial and failure. Now that leads me. Oh and, by the way, in the schools where they have taken away the phones they found, principal office visits fell sharply among high schoolers compared with the year before. So that has worked.
Speaker 2:I had a lovely discussion with my daughter yesterday before she left the house and she's thinking we figure she graduates here in a couple of weeks and she'll be a cosmetologist, she'll get her high school diploma ready to go to work and we've always seen as exceptional kids we talked to this with Gina. They're developmentally about two years behind. It takes them a while to cook and to be ready for that next step, and so we were figuring give her a couple, two years here, live at home, save her money, learn how to manage herself, give her time to mature, and long before. A couple of weeks ago her girlfriend oh, a couple of months ago her and her girlfriend had been talking about moving in together and getting an apartment in August and she's been talking with her mom about it. She didn't write it back to me but I did go over the finances with her and we have some money saved up for her. But that money is not going to be used to bail her out. It's only going to be for big things. Maybe her first month's rent and a deposit, maybe a payment towards a new car when this one breaks down Something substantial and meaningful, not just because she forgot to pay her bill and she was going to get the heat canceled. We're not doing that. So we had that chat and then I said you can stay here, and we were planning on that. She said I know. She said that I realized that when I'm here I don't listen to the two of you very well and I need to figure out things on my own and I think if I get out there, I get an appointment, I'll learn in real life and I'm the kind of person who needs real life to teach me. I said, yeah, you're right, because you're ready to listen to our ideas. And she knows that she's going to have to experience it firsthand and we'll still have a nest for her and I'm quite proud of her that she knows that about herself. So I hope that works and we'll see in the next couple months what happens.
Speaker 2:The last part of this article on the phone. It's about what's best for kids. A principal says, and we think there are strong mental health ramifications from this frail dependency. So whether it's you texting or they're on social media at school, yes, that is a mental health effect. The test schools have students lock phones in pouches from a company called Yonder. I believe students can carry their pouch phones throughout the day, unlocking the bag when they leave. Some students have tried to rip through the pouches, but most have been compliant. We're not seeing students have conversations in the hallways and at the lunch.
Speaker 2:Can you believe it? In real life, socialization is returning Only if you get rid of the phone. And I've got to tell you, I see all these young adults at the office and at Orange Theory, the coaches, and they're all getting people and they're always going on and on about dating apps and it's hard to find someone and then they thought this person was great, and then they were, and it was all this drama. And I'm like just do it organically, go somewhere, go to the park, meet somebody organically, that's how you do it. But they'll turn to the apps and they don't work so well and then they don't know how to socialize or how to meet someone organically. That's pretty sad. I find that very difficult. A couple other clips the Fort Wayne School District is also among the nearly 200 districts across the country suing social media companies, including Meta, snap and TikTok. The districts allege that apps are harmful to their kids, and I couldn't agree with that more. And then this principle that earlier, where they use the bags, which there are some expenses that I use Gowder says his goal is to normalize a phone-free school day.
Speaker 2:If we create a habit that starts in sixth grade, maybe in five years we won't even need the pouches. And this is where parents come in as well. If parents in a school I'm every lecture in you got to be creative together with other parents, so if other parents in the middle school decide we're not giving kids, our kids a smartphone, then that's normal. What does every teen fear the most? Embarrassment that they're different. Everybody else has a smartphone. I'm the only one. It's killing my social life. Cindy, you're nodding your head. You've been there. But what if normal was not having cell phones at school? And that's just the way we want to buy our day not having cell phones at school. I would just love that. Okay, I want to wrap up quick with or.
Speaker 3:Sydney. Do you have any thoughts on the whole topic? Oh, I think it's all great, I think just even well, I think it's going to take a lot of time to go through. I remember as, growing up in the 70s and 80s, I was the latchkey kid, and being the latchkey kid spurred me to not have my kids feel the same thing when I was a kid. So like I found ways to stay home with my kids and still work, and I think this generation of kids that are so indoctrinated by their phones and dependent on their phones it'll be interesting to see how they raise their kids, because they'll say I was raised this way. I don't want to do the same thing for you.
Speaker 2:So I think it's going to take time to kind of go through and there may be a backlash at some point with some of the younger parents who have realized what it's done. And I had a mom who's got two elementary kids. We were talking one day and she said in high school I struggled with weight, body image and some self-harm and she said that was before social media. I think if I went through that and had social media I would have really been a train wreck and I'm like yep that is true.
Speaker 2:So maybe the younger kids will phase out of this and go. This is a whole bunch of BS anyway. It's probably better just to sit with your best friend in the park or out at the playground and just talk the way people used to and horse you on with your best friends and meet somebody new and just those wholesome things, but I just sound like an old man.
Speaker 3:I mean it changes right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we all know it all goes through waves. A beauty would make me cry. I saw an article on National Public Radio about a school that when they had kids who were struggling and this strategy has been used by teachers for eons. I used to get to do the chalk erasers in fourth grade. That was awesome, but giving jobs around the school to shrub race students. One example was one student who missed all the plants in the school offices, faculty offices, teachers their job was to go around and miss the plants every day and about how it gave them a sense of meaning and belonging, like they were meaningful, they were doing something, they felt they belonged and that's so essential for kids. It's also great if you have an exceptional child. It's fabulous for them because there's so many students who do not feel like they're getting a sense of meaning out of school.
Speaker 2:I was one of those kids. I hated school. I didn't feel like a sense of I felt belonging. I was one of those kids. I hated school. I didn't feel like a sense of I felt belonging. I had lots of friends, always very social. Teachers loved me because I didn't misbehave, but it didn't really motivate me or drive my day on giving those tasks for students, and this one the story is about my daughter on her final day of high school and she went to an alternative high school and they have a trade program.
Speaker 2:That's where she learned cosmetology. But all the kids there have struggled in traditional schools. It's not going to get fit for them. And on her last day my wife and I went over and her friends were there and her favorite teachers, and we all walked around the hallways ringing cowbells for her and she was in the lead and she walked through the whole campus and all the students come out in the hallways. So you got freshmen out there, sophomores, juniors, seniors, and they're all cheering for her and clapping for her. And it was this amazing thing, one that now my daughter used to see graduates do that when she started there. Now she's the one graduating, feeling this tremendous sense of belonging and recognition. But also for the younger students, it gives them a sense of hope, like maybe I can graduate, maybe this is something I can do, and so it builds hope and meaning for younger students and it certainly meant the world to her and the world to us.
Speaker 2:And I did post after the walkout I got a picture of her with the cafeteria, the woman who heads up the cafeteria, and she was just great. And she said I just love these kids, I love your daughter. She comes see me every day and I just love taking care of them. And it was awesome. It was just so special. I was crying half the time. And then, finally, to a fourth grader out there, she gave me permission to use her quote.
Speaker 2:I was visiting with her the other day and she's just a very elegant speaker talking about her own emotions. I'm thinking this is an 18-year-old. I'm like you've got to be a writer someday. This is really good stuff.
Speaker 2:But we were talking about her younger brother who struggles with impulse control, and she came up with a line for her brother and it went to her brother.
Speaker 2:She said you have to be ahead of time before Tom gets ahead of you, meaning that when you're in the moment and you want to punch somebody or push somebody, take the time, pause, think about not doing it and then you'll be ahead of time, versus if you just react and now you're behind time because you're in trouble again. And I just thought that was one of the greatest things I've ever heard you have to be ahead of time before time gets ahead of you, and that's the same thing, whether you're running late or you're disorganized and all of a sudden you're behind time. So all you parents out there, I hope you've enjoyed the show today. If you did, please share it with a friend and collect your own moments of beauty that make you cry, and write them down and put them in a box. It's the greatest thing you can do, and especially when it's your own kids, it's just awesome, and those get you through the hard times as well. Thank you again for listening and remember relax. You only have to be this side of good enough. Thank you.