Legit Parenting
Legit Parenting
Understanding Core Values for Stronger Family Bonds with Karleen Savage
We're thrilled to have Karleen Savage author of The Confident Teen Blueprint, and a veteran in parenting and conflict resolution, share her wisdom on establishing core principles like unconditional love, respect, and consistency. Karleen emphasizes the importance of parents understanding their own beliefs to raise confident and respectful children. We also introduce the "Confident Teen Blueprint," a 30-day challenge aimed at helping parents instill core values and daily mantras that promote self-efficacy and independence in their teens, setting them up for long-term happiness and success.
The episode takes a deeper dive into the complexities of conflict resolution. We discuss how empathy can bridge cultural differences and aid in resolving contentious issues, such as teenagers' exposure to explicit content on social media.
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. Welcome to Legit Parenting. I'm your host, craig Nippenberg, along with my producer, sidney Moreau. We want to welcome you to Legit Parenting. Our guest today is going to be talking to us about having your own parenting philosophy, which I love. The concept, it fits with Legit Parenting, teen development and negotiation skills and she is a former professional negotiator, so this ought to be really fabulous.
Speaker 1:Now two quick news pieces from earlier this week and from today, today's Wall Street Journal on the front page. But the first one a couple days ago. Our Surgeon General is really pushing the idea of having warning labels on social media, and I'll read a quote Social media today is like tobacco decades ago. It's a product whose business model depends on addicting kids, and it's with cigarettes that Surgeon General's warning label is a critical step towards mitigating the threat to children, from an organization that's working on it and supporting that, and I totally support it. Sadly, as you would guess, the social media companies are fighting it. It's too broad, they say. The social media companies are fighting it it's too broad, they say, because they don't want to give it up and they do have a pipeline and this next story and Congress has to approve of it. I'm not sure there's much hope of getting our Congress to approve of anything together, occasionally maybe on this one, but today's story, this one today, really hits home at why we need that and how social media companies need to be addressed in terms of addicting teens.
Speaker 1:The title of the Wall Street Journal was Instagram points young teens to sexual videos tests show. So they did their own independent test, along with some college professors around the country, and what they found was that Instagram, compared to Snapchat and TikTok, was the worst at showing pornographic material, gore and hate speech to young users, and more than to they do to the adults to young users and more than to they do to the adults. Teens saw three times as many prohibited posts containing nudity, 1.7 times as much violence and 4.1 times as much bullying content as user above the age 30, according to their 2022 analysis. Shame, shame. Those are the things that especially. I don't want to be gender specific, but for the boys out there in middle school and high school who love all that, what's a sophomoric humor? Making fun of others, watching others demise or getting hurt, doing something stupid, that jackass stuff. And they're easily manipulated by hate speech. And they love the nudes. And what this study found is, once they started seeing nudes, they got, within 20 minutes, were led to sites that the site would message them that they could have private photos, more explicit photos, for a charge, of course. So we have to do something about social media for our kids. It is destroying them and we'll see what happens if anybody takes responsibility Hard to imagine.
Speaker 1:Okay, I want to get on to our guest, carlene Savage, with more than four decades of hands-on experience parenting seven unique children ranging from ages 28 to 41. That's a big spread, although I've got you beat. Our kids are 47, down to 18. Four of them you have more. Carlina's honed her skills in navigating the complexity of raising confident children and teens, and it's documented her approach in her book, the Confident Teen Blueprint a parent's 30-day challenge to empower your teen. I want to hear about that. As the creator of this savage theory of resolution, a five-skill model that can be used to resolve any conflict, carlene knows that peaceful and amicable resolution is possible.
Speaker 1:Carlene has been featured on NSMBC for knowledge and hostage negotiation. She holds a master's in conflict resolution and negotiation and is a certified hostage and crisis negotiator. This was not on her bio, but after I read the last part about the negotiation, I thought this is going to be great for parents of preschoolers and teenagers, because when you have a preschooler teenager, you're the hostage. They've taken you over. So I can't wait to hear what she has to say. Carlene, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Thank you. I'm so happy to be here.
Speaker 1:Thank you, and you hail from Utah? It sounds like I do. Yeah, you up in Salt Lake, or?
Speaker 2:No South, oh I love.
Speaker 1:Southern Utah.
Speaker 2:It's not St George, but down by Provo near Provo.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love St George, love southern Utah. We have taken so many trips there. The canyons are just spectacular, oh that's great. Tell us. I'd like to start with the idea of having your own parenting philosophy. Tell us what you mean by that. What's your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2:It came by way of people asking me over the decades, pretty adamantly asking me how are you doing this? How are you getting your kids, when they're teenagers, to still hug you or kiss you or say I love you? How are you doing that? How are you getting them to do their what people call their chores? How is that working? It always seems like even when we're here, they're so respectful. And how does that happen? So this is a culmination of answering that question how did I do it? And I just I geared it down to just three basic things that I did, that I was pretty consistent with, and so that's how that philosophy came through. Philosophy is just basically three to five things that are 50,000 foot view that you want your kids to leave the home, and you keep it simple. You don't get into the minutia of it all and you come up with, say, just three to five that you that are absolutes for you.
Speaker 1:Did you want to share your three or four or five things that you really wanted to focus on?
Speaker 2:So my three to five. They are things like I want my children to leave this home knowing that they are absolutely unequivocal loved, unequivocally loved, and I will be there for them no matter what. And it comes back in our day, it dials into that whole unconditional love. We used to talk about unconditional love when we were younger, but nobody really knew what that was. So I spent a lot of time thinking what is that, what would it look like for me? And so that is like a philosophy you can tell me anything, as long as you do it with respect.
Speaker 1:Love that.
Speaker 2:And another one might be I will stand with you, doesn't matter the situation, I will stand with you. Doesn't matter the situation, I will stand with you if you tell me the truth. So that would be an example of another one.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love all of those and I think when the first thing you said that really is so important is the idea of being consistent in your parenting and it's hard, hard sometimes, but that in the research the number one cause of child behavioral problems and this doesn't account for if your child has ADHD or ASD, but just in a broad stroke is parental inconsistency. Now I'd like to say pre-COVID, I said if you're consistent 80% of the time, you're good to go. You're getting an A in parenting at 80%. There is no A in parenting After COVID, during COVID and after okay, 65%, unless you have a preschooler or teenager and then go for 51%. But consistency is extremely important. I also love the don't get in which says don't get into the minutia.
Speaker 2:Not in the philosophies. Yeah, you don't get into minutia in your philosophies, your overarching philosophies. I think that people have problems with consistency, confusion of what to do, how to parent, because they do get into the minutia, they do go. Okay, and this is why I wrote the book is because parents would come to me and go. My son came home and I asked him to fix dinner and he was very disrespectful. And they're getting into the minutia, right. And so when you have the overarching philosophy and maybe the overarching philosophy is, you will know hard work, you will understand hard work and how to do it, you will rely on yourself so that when you leave this home, you understand it's on you. That might be an overarching philosophy, but then you get into the minutia and you try and go my son is, his personality is this way or his personality is that way, and when you do that, you're out of the philosophy.
Speaker 1:Right. So you're sticking to those core principles, no matter who your child is Right and you have seven.
Speaker 2:You cannot change who you are. Right, right and you have seven, you cannot change who you are. So once you understand what you firmly core, fundamentally in your soul, believe about your parenting, when you take charge of owning that, then everything can trickle down from that. But you must know who you are. Some people say one of the philosophies might be they will know that I love God. That might be something that that is thing, or they may I want them to know I'm spiritual. That may be a thing you want them to understand when they leave. Not necessarily you be spiritual, not necessarily, but that you are. What is it? Because that won't change.
Speaker 2:And they're, so they're everything else with the wind.
Speaker 1:Basically, you're empowering yourself as a parent. You pick those things you want to focus on and you don't waver from it. And you don't have to be perfect or anything like that, of course, but just that core base where you're feeling confident as a parent. Sometimes, and you don't want to get into the minutia, especially with your kids there are times when we really stress independence at our home and being responsible and understanding cause and effect, and this is why this happens. I have noticed a difference, excuse me, in our kids. We're a blended family. My son is now 30. In that area, he was a piece of cake. He just automatically did those things.
Speaker 1:Our daughter, who's now 18 and has extreme ADHD, not so much with connecting the dots, and then when I try to be simple with her about the dogs were in your room eating the trash out of your trash can because you had food in the room. You've trained the dogs to go to your trash can and shred it, and this has gone on numerous times, but she doesn't seem to connect the dots. And that's when, then and she'll have every explanation of why it happened other than directed at her You're like no honey, it's simple, it's really simple, but so some kids grasp that more than others and it's hard sometimes not to get hooked. I also love the thing of you don't disrespect your parents. You do it in a respectful manner and that is essential. I see so many kids who just are so horribly disrespectful of their parents. That was not tolerated in my home that I grew up in.
Speaker 1:But it is important and the honesty piece For all my kids. I've said look, you may have a consequence for whatever happened. If you're honest, I'll cut the consequence in half. If you aren't honest, the consequence is double, because the primary thing is just be open and honest and sometimes, if you're open and honest, you don't have a consequence at all. You just want them to be honest so then you can help them figure out why it is they did what they did and that's called having insight. You want your child to have insight into. This is why I did this behavior and then this is what I can do next time to avoid that. But you can't get there if they're not being honest and then you're just spinning your wheels. But I love it and especially just being confident in yourself, and I see so many parents worried about themselves as a parent and questioning their parenting and they're not doing it right. They're not being a gentle parent, they're not doing this, they're not doing that.
Speaker 2:And you don't have to be that, Just be who you are and you have to accept, I think, a lot of those angles that are coming up, the gentle parenting concepts, the, the even bullying in the home you have these bully tactics happening that are in the home. I think all of these kinds of things are coming up because they're taking a stab at let's figure out something because we have nothing and as a society as a whole, and so I think that they're taking these stabs at okay, if you do gentle parenting, that will work. If you do this, that will work. It used to be Dr Spock.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I went to Dr Spock, my mother. That was the Bible.
Speaker 2:Now, I never read. I don't know anything about him, I just know people quoted him so much. But the thing is that it's because we lack our own ability to come up with our own book, our own philosophy, our own approach, what works for you. So I grew up going looking at all these mild mannered women, these soft toned women, and I thought I would give anything to be in, sound like them. And then I just had to accept I'm Polynesian, my voice is stronger, my look is stronger, and so this I'm never going to have that gentle look about me, the gentle voice about me. I'm never going to have it.
Speaker 2:So if somebody were to come out and say gentle parenting, if I look at the people doing gentle parenting, that's what they're doing. They're those people I could never achieve. But what if the new way of parenting was? But what if the new way of parenting was understand who I am and come up with those three to five ideas that I want my kids to leave with? I don't have to be the Dr Spock's or the gentle parenting or fit that mold. I get to be me because I am the best suited parent for these children.
Speaker 2:What if that was the win? What if that was not necessarily the confidence? What if that was just truth? And if that is just truth, then, gosh, we don't have to go to all these books, these poor moms that are going out there getting six books and reading them while they're pregnant. It's, oh my gosh, I totally get the worry, but it's like you were built for it. You're having the baby, you're the right one for the job. Trust that. Now, who do you want to be?
Speaker 1:How do you want to show up? And the introductory line of Dr Spock's book to parents is relax more than you think you do. Isn't that fabulous? And I think he would agree with everything you've just said. And I do like your larger frame. And it's hard for me to think of that because I get so irritated when I'm looking at Instagram with all these tips for parents and sometimes I just can't help myself and I have to respond. Sometimes I like them, but most of the time I want to throw up. But yeah, if you think about it in a broader way, it's we all are looking for a sense of control, or how do we do this and control in our parenting, and ultimately you don't really have that much control.
Speaker 2:There isn't a lot, no kidding, you have zero.
Speaker 1:Your kids are who they are, but the foundation of the relationship is what you said first about loving them unconditionally, and that provides a strong attachment with your child, and we know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if that's your philosophy. You some people may have a philosophy of they're going to be peak performers. Yeah, and that may be a philosophy that overrides unconditional love. You've got to know that. But are you self-aware to know that? And if you are, then if you want that to happen, then you get a partner. Anyway, there's other alternatives to doing that, but you have to figure out because really, if you dial it down, this is just a random out there. If you dial it down, don't we all want the same kind of outcomes for our kids Optimal, their ability to get anything that they desire, to achieve that, to be anything they want to be. But do we set up the foundation to achieve that? Now? We set up rules and we set up those bars, but do we set up the environment for it? If I want peak performers, is that coming because that's my overarching philosophy, or my overarching philosophy is I want my kids to achieve whatever they want and go as far as they're capable of going? That's the same thing, but two different approaches, right?
Speaker 1:And it's basically wanting them to have self-efficacy, which is they feel like they can take on life and solve their problems, and we need that. Yeah, that's what you want for them. And to be independent, responsible. There has been the trend in the last I blame it on Happy Meals, when those came out the children. We want our children to be happy and happiness is great in life, but that's really not the main goal. It's helping self-efficacy, having that, solving problems, being responsible, expressing empathy to your neighbors and your family living in community.
Speaker 2:I would think we want our kids to be happy and that's a problem only in define it. Define what happy is, happy meals we're all defining. So we all define what conflict is. We all define what a good attitude is, but we are thinking we're all defining it the same. One of the biggest things that happens in conflict is that we're not defining it the same. So, instead of asking about defining it, you want your kids to be happy. Yes, I want my kids to be happy. But, yeah, define it in a, not in a very general. Define that because you want your kids to be happy. What's going to get them there? Then that's your trickle-down effect. That could be an overarching philosophy, but now you want to dial it down where you were giving examples. This is what I wanted to do. I want them to be self-reliant and I want them to be blah, blah, blah, blah. That's coming out of your definition of happy and that is the overarching philosophy. If you want happy, you have to understand it's a trickle down effect.
Speaker 1:After that, what are the steps to get there and what will lead you to that. Once you've defined it, then okay, what specific steps do you take? How do you do that?
Speaker 2:Are you asking?
Speaker 1:I'm just saying you're asking a kid, what are the steps you're going to do? You do that, are you asking? I'm just saying you're asking our kid, what are the steps you're going to do? Are you talking about that as a family? What's going to help you get there so that you do feel reasonably happy, that you want, and what's going to achieve that for you? At our house, the philosophy is if you are responsible and you work hard and you solve your problems and you're independent and you care about others in your community, you're going to feel happiness as an adult. Those are the frameworks that we have and that might be different for other parents, right? So we've never really been big pushers on performance. For me it was always effort. When the report card that the kids get, they usually have your grades for the subject and then your grades for things like effort, honesty, good citizenship, and I always stress those first. To me that's more important than what the grade was. You can always improve your grades.
Speaker 2:And when it came to, when it came to grades, my focus maybe is similar to yours. It was do the very best you can and if you get a D, but you can tell me it was the very best.
Speaker 1:I'm behind you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yep, I'm standing there and all that.
Speaker 1:No, totally agree, Tell us. I want to move on to your blueprint for teens, a 30-day challenge. I can't imagine doing anything with a teen in 30 days. I consider it maybe nine years that you're trying to build on some things till their brain matures.
Speaker 2:By nine years we've already got a habit.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, long before that, but tell us about the challenge. So the Confident.
Speaker 2:Teen Blueprint is a 30-day challenge and it takes you week by week. Got a habit yeah, oh yeah, long before that, but tell us about the challenge. And so the confident team blueprint is a 30 day challenge and it takes you week by week in it, but it what it's doing, it's helping you come up with three implementate three things. One is the overarching philosophies. What are your three to five things you absolutely want them to know when they leave your home. Is it okay? It because when my daughter left our home, my oldest left our home for college. I came home going, oh my gosh, I didn't teach her how to sew. And then I thought what? No, that's not what's important. Overarching philosophies, that is your key. That emits who you are for your family. It emits your leadership in your home. It emits who you are as a companion. If you have a companion, if you're a single parent and you don't, it emits who, your support system and what that will look like. That is what your overarching philosophy will do.
Speaker 2:Your second part is the mantras. A lot of people talk about affirmations, the mantras. A lot of people talk about affirmations, but they're so cliche now we have muddied them down, diluted them into these lies that if we tell ourselves enough, we'll begin to act and believe it. And so I have a problem with affirmations. I love mantras. Mantras are the things you say every day, through your actions and through your words, that support the overarching philosophy. So, if we look at it, you have your overarching philosophy, which is small. Then you have your mantras, which is larger, and you use those every day in, day out, to support the mantra.
Speaker 1:Do you have a favorite Before you move on? Do you have a favorite mantra that you use?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have a ton of them, because mantras are not limited by number, mantras are limited by mind, and so you can do all sorts. So, if my overarching philosophy is you're going to have to do, you need to be able to do the best you can. If that was an overarching philosophy, do the best, you can Give me 100%, and I'll stand with you. If that was an overarching philosophy, then my mantra might be something like you're capable of anything. It supports my philosophy that they are going to do their very best. You're capable of anything. You're capable of everything. Oh my gosh, you're amazing at doing that. Those are mantras that will support my philosophy. And then the third part. The third part is your implementation plan. This is and I'm going to I'm going to use it in more of a conflict way, because it's really easy to have an implementation plan when everything's great, but when things are tough, you're in a tough conversation. My overarching, what was my overarching philosophy that we're using as tough conversation? My overarching, what was my overarching philosophy that we're using as the example? My overarching philosophy is hold on, do the very best you can. Then the mantras were to build that when I get in a conflict, so say they get home and they're failing their class, okay, then that is a conflict between the school and that grade. Right, they're failing their class, so now it's a conflict I have to deal. That grade, right, they're failing their class, so now it's a conflict I have to deal with. So it would be something like I need to talk to you about this situation. You're capable of doing anything, right.
Speaker 2:I totally believe that that's how I'm beginning my implementation. Then I'm going to go we have an issue you have an F, you're not going to be able to graduate, or you can't get on to the next grade because you cannot fail this class. That's an issue that we have now. So I need us to figure out and re-strategize this of how we're going to improve upon this. I need your help. Help me figure this out. That is implementation. It's called bringing all of that down and then saying let's solve together how this looks. That can be a three-year-old that's helping you solve, and that can be a 13-year-old that's helping you solve, but you've got to be able to give them that, that space to be able to start utilizing that age specific, but start utilizing and feeling that month, that overarching philosophy.
Speaker 1:Well, I like that one, how you're engaging them in a shared process. I like how you're in that implementation, the way you said it. You're engaging them in this process together. Where I struggle, being raised by German Lutherans, is the idea that I know what you should be doing and I'm going to tell you what you should be doing, and your job is to listen and do it, Because that's what I was raised with.
Speaker 2:My husband's like that.
Speaker 1:There's times when there's a situation and I know the solution. Sometimes I'll say to my daughter and I really try to not just lecture like here's the solution. I really try to like okay, so here's what's going on, how do you think you might solve that? How do you think that would work out if you did that? Or how would that work out if you did that? And but it's so hard I have to bite my tongue and go my God, that's just stupid, that's not going to work, but I don't. And then I try to lead through the process and help her reach the conclusions that would be more beneficial. And when we have those moments it's so sweet. She'll say thank you, daddy. I'm like yeah, I appreciate that, honey. I said people pay me a lot of money for this kind of stuff, but you get it for free Tracks up.
Speaker 2:I don't know that in that space, because that is a it seems like you've got that, you whatever I don't know how true it is, but that you're sharing. You've got a pretty passionate stance on things, thanks to your parents. So you come with a pretty passionate stance. In my world of conflict resolution, dealing in conflict, you have to give space for both of those. So what if the situation was hey look, sweetie, I'm going to tell you what the what I think the answer is, and then we'll break it down and we can start from there, because it's not because I know what you're saying and my husband is this very, you give it to me because I'm the dad, you give it to me because I'm the parent, and so we had that contention. That would happen. Our kids are doing the darting, going what I'm not sure, and so it's so. You still need to give it space and they will learn. So they will learn that other people out there are going to have the same. They're going to have a very strong opinion of the way you should work at their job. They're going to have a very strong opinion about whether you're showing up and all of these things. So it's all relevant to the conversation. So I love that you share that.
Speaker 2:And what a tug of war we go through as parents to try and lasso our tongue and I'm not really the lassoing type. So for my brain that's what I was thinking is, how would I approach that? And I'm thinking for my brain, I would probably say it and not you're going to do it this way, but say this is what I think, and not you're going to do it this way but say this is what I think. Now, I don't, I'm not sure I'm in the right process, so walk me through yours. But that goes down to conflict resolution and the skills that are taught there with the through hostage crisis and mediation. Those are the skills I know where this. I know what this lawsuit should look like. Right, I can sit there and think that I know what this lawsuit should look like. Right, I can sit there and think that I know what this lawsuit should look like. I know what the outcome should be, but I got to find out where you're coming from. How are you showing up?
Speaker 1:today let's do a podcast. I'm blanking on his name. Several years ago he wrote a book and he was a hostage negotiator for the FBI.
Speaker 2:Chris Voss yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1:And one of the things that I really tuned into. He said you have to the person you're negotiating with has to feel that you have empathy for them.
Speaker 2:It doesn't mean you agree with them, but that you empathize with their situation.
Speaker 2:And people get it so confusing they think empathy must be you're in it like you're in it. You're in it for a purpose, whatever. That purpose is in a hostage and he dealt with terrorists and he's not in it for they're in the business of kidnapping people and holding people hostage. So he's understanding. Hey, this is a business, I get it. That makes sense. That's his empathy, I get it. I get where you're coming from. You had to do this, you had to make money. It's the business. And a lot of times when we deal in conflict we don't want to think like that. We think, oh my gosh, if you are sympathizing with them, no, you're just understanding.
Speaker 1:It's understanding them. And, man, you could apply that to politics in America right now, big time.
Speaker 2:When you were talking about that at the beginning, craig, I was sitting there going, huh, there's so many views to this. Now, what's my personal stance? I have a personal stance, absolutely I have a personal stance, but in a conflict scope I'm going. What would cause Instagram to do that? Huh, money. Maybe they own part of a business. Maybe they're a shareholder in a business that promotes that. Maybe their numbers aren't indicating the growth that they promised shareholders, maybe all these things are going through my head, regardless of what I feel about my position, but I start going, huh, and this is the thing that I teach when I, when I teach conflict resolution. These are the things I teach and I show you how to have.
Speaker 2:These are called the wicked problems, because everybody's got a point of view and there's no right, for every single person will not have the right view. For example, when you were talking about they're showing these images to these kids, these teenagers pornographic images or soft porn. They're showing these. You would think everybody on board would get the same opinion, the same disdain or the same support. You would think everybody's going to do that. But what if I told you I know a mom and her husband they divorced and her whole thing that she supported for her son was pornography. When he went to visit her he could have unlimited access. Now why would she do that? You would think, oh my gosh, but showing.
Speaker 2:That is just the kind of reason why we can't talk about it in civil tone. It's the that's the very reason. I have a mom that's doing that, not a dad who's supporting that. That is totally against. And the dad's going OK, now I've got a son that's going crazy, and then all the things that come out of that, just like you were citing. And then you have a business that's supporting that. And then you have parents, some parents that are saying no, but other parents say you know what? I don't have a problem that he's looking at this. It's a girl in a bathing suit, he's going to see that at the beach, so no big deal. They have actually had these kinds of arguments. But the thing is that if we limit our mind to not view it, then it's hard to have that civil Actually, when I was reading that article today, one of my thoughts was I wonder how Europeans feel about it.
Speaker 1:Because I had a graduate student gosh 25 years ago. She was from Sweden and didn't wear undergarments ever and we were working with junior high boys and when you're out playing ultimate Frisbee in the sun with the kids or capture the flag and you're sweating, the boys spent most of their time staring at her. And so one day I said it'd be nice to have some undergarments on just to reduce some of the sexual tension with the boys. And she said you Americans, all you care about is sex, but you don't care about guns. In Sweden, we don't care about sex, but we do care about guns. I was like, ok, there you go.
Speaker 2:I had. We used to have German students I used to tour German students in the US and Japanese students. They'd come over for a couple months. This one lived with us for a little bit. Anyway, his first week he's from Germany and his first week out. We live on a corner and all the kids go back and forth from school to and from school right in front of our house. And one day my daughter comes in and I think she's I don't know 10 maybe, and she comes in and she's like Stefan's on the roof. I said yeah, he said he wanted to go sunbathe. She goes, he's in, he has nothing on, he's only got his underwear on. And I said, oh my gosh. And so we had to bring him in and explain culture the.
Speaker 2:American culture versus the German culture, and so then he was like all offended. What are you? What's the matter with me? I am beautiful. If you have beautiful, you are beautiful. Be, okay with it.
Speaker 1:And it was so hilarious. I have two just incredible memories. My best friend since preschool has lived in Berlin for the last 40 years, raised his family there. He's retired now and I just got a what's that app, what's Up or what's App that he's been because I hadn't heard from him in a while and he's spending six, seven weeks hiking across France into Spain by himself with a backpack and he's 500 miles into it. He's got 300 miles left. I'm like, oh my gosh, that's so him.
Speaker 1:But the memories when he was in the States with his family had a little daughter the same age as my son and they were about 10. And we were sharing a hotel suite with a bathroom in the middle out in Glenwood Springs and my son and I are in there brushing our teeth and all of a sudden, elisa, his daughter, comes in and just starts peeing and my son's looking at me like Dad and I said, it's okay, honey, they're Germans. And then about a year later, we were in Berlin and we went on this lovely Berlin has lots of just beautiful parks and lakes. And we walked around on the lakes and there's plenty of naked adults suntanning, but then their daughter. She said, mommy, let's go swimming. And she looked at mom, looked at my son, and she said you guys want to swim and I'm like we don't have swimsuits. And she said that's okay, Wear your first suit. And I looked at her. What she said? The suit. God gave you your skin. And just then her daughter just stripped everything off and went like I said okay, here we go.
Speaker 1:So there are so many different views and on the pornography thing, I am not like anti-porn or not very prudent at all. Neither is my wife. I approach everything from a brain basis and when you look at how online stuff is whether it's gaming, social media, porn the way it's designed is really to hijack your desire and novelty systems and it does big time. And it's so much more addictive than like in the old days. You might find another dad's playboy at your friend's house and look at some pictures. Right, and that was plenty for us. But it is so overwhelmingly addictive to kids, just like cigarettes, and that's the analogy the Surgeon General's using.
Speaker 1:But then I also liked your point of we think about why are the social media companies doing that and is there another way they could increase their viewership and get more kids in? Are there other ways they could do that would be more positive, more pro-social, less addictive and less harmful to one's mental health.
Speaker 2:If it was money, so this is a cool idea. If it was money and I did this politically, so I was pretty involved politically in the previous state I was in and pretty highly influential there during a certain time, and I remember going up against the governor and his wife not them personally, but against one of their policies. And so if we're looking at, say, instagram or any of these social medias, what if the issue was money or stakeholder demand or whatever? And that's how they came up with the solution. What if this? What if you just taxed? What if you I don't even know if it's a tax, I don't know if it's a user fee and you charged a user fee to the people that show that kind of content? What is it? Friends OnlyFans? What if that was taxed to use their app? What if? You know what I'm saying? There's maybe too many tentacles, but it's at least coming to the table going. Okay, you have a problem with this. This is what you're trying to achieve. How can we help you achieve that without subjecting this, if that's?
Speaker 1:the case Now? I do know a long time ago OnlyFans is that a gambling website?
Speaker 2:No, that's the website where all the people take off their clothes.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 2:And all they do is it's the old.
Speaker 1:I didn't know I where all the people take off their clothes. Oh, and all they do is.
Speaker 2:It's the old. It's the old um I thought it was a gambling site like fans, sports fans, I'll be, darned right, really, no, yeah, no, it's where you go and these girls make money and it's mostly girls and the girls make money by like these one-on-one viewing yeah, okay and so they lead them and they make a ton of money that way.
Speaker 2:But there was another one. A long time ago I, a woman, gave a talk in a. It was a women's group and she played a recording and it was one of the major rock stars and it like the old rock stars that were banded, one of the old band members of these big, one of these big rock groups, and he was talking to somebody and the person asked him why do you do what you do? And he why do you sing those kinds of songs? Because they were provocative and sexualized and all this other stuff. Why do you do that? And the band person, band leader, said we are trying to drive people to sex. That was their goal.
Speaker 2:And so when you hear that, then it becomes an issue of okay, so why is that? What are you gaining out of that? How does that look for you? What does that mean for you? Do they come back because you're doing that for them? What happens?
Speaker 2:Or is it a subliminal message, which that is in marketing? That is all marketing, the subliminal messaging, and what does that look like for you? So Instagram, or whoever is the social media platform, they have a marketing angle to this, to all of this. Trying to understand that marketing angle and finding out you know what, maybe we don't like your morals. Some parents are going to go I don't like the morals anymore of this platform. Then you get to stand and say I don't like the morals, but now you've got to turn around and deal with your kids on that Right. Or do you start having conversations and use your overarching philosophy and your mantras and your implementation plan and show them a different way of looking at things? And show them a different way of looking at things? Do you use your conflict resolution skills and help them understand the broader scope here for their life?
Speaker 1:I really when my son was middle school, his friend showed him a website and this is long before what we have now. It was on the old hard drive computer, you know, and it was pretty tame, but I had him read an article and write a paper for me on the objectification of women and the dark side of the sex trade industry, which is pretty gnarly, and that's what I wanted him to learn about. And we've always focused healthy, making good, protecting yourself, taking care of your health and I've always approached sexuality as a healthcare issue, not so much the moral standpoint of it and all that's behind it, but I see it as a healthcare issue. And how do we implement things to make sure we're being healthy and that we have consent, to make sure we're being healthy and that we have consent? And the other idea is that all bodies are beautiful bodies and it's not. You know, so many girls teen girls want to be like this model or the ones they see on Instagram and starve themselves or whatever to get that way. Or guys who do steroids so they have that six-pack and look all buff. And really the idea is all bodies are beautiful and just focus on being healthy and if you're healthy and you can do what you want to do with your body, you're fine, and but boy, there's so many of those images that are hard on.
Speaker 1:I do what you said about a use tax because there is some research Now this was 20, 30 years ago and it was prior to. There's been a huge decrease in smoking in our country for everybody, including teens. I think the last I read it's down to 5% of teens use cigarettes. But one of the studies was out of Canada because their levels were so much lower and the way they did it was by just like tripling the tax on cigarettes, and so teens couldn't afford it, so they didn't have as much smoking, and so teens couldn't afford it, so they didn't have as much smoking problems because they couldn't afford it. And now we have the vape thing. But there are solutions there that you know you can think out of the box, but I think we've got to wrap up.
Speaker 1:I love, with our discussion, there's so many different ways to view things. There's so many different sides to every story, and I do always make an effort as a parent to listen to my kids first, to get a sense of what their story is. Where are they coming from? What are they feeling Having empathy for that? Before I do my German thing, I try to do that.
Speaker 1:But the underlying point is, as a parent, you get to parent how you want. This is a free country as long as you're good enough. If you're not a good enough parent and you're abusing your child, you're neglecting your child, you have severe drug and alcohol issues, that's causing chaos in the home or there's violence in your home, that's not good enough and we have laws around that. But if you're above that 51% mark, you get to be the parent you want to be and you should have faith in that and trust yourself and decide. These are the things I want to teach my kids and here's how I'm going to implement it.
Speaker 1:And sometimes you do it, sometimes you don't because you're too tired. Because you're too tired, like I'm a pretty good listener, but if it's after about eight o'clock at night, I am checked out. I can't talk about this anymore. How about in the morning? It's not gonna go well after eight o'clock. I'm just my brain shut off. But I really like that idea of having that confidence in yourself and from there then you implement that with your kids and you can take the perspective that you wanted the course you want to go to. That's up to you, just like the mom who lets the kid watch the porn, the dad doesn't. That's fine. They can do it differently either way, and it's up to you as a parent. So I want to thank you for being on the show today. It's been a delightful back and forth.
Speaker 2:I've really enjoyed it craig, it's been great connect with you or I've really enjoyed it. Great Craig, it's been great. How do parents?
Speaker 1:connect with you or find your material. What's the best way?
Speaker 2:carlinesavagecom slash parents. Carlinesavagecom slash parents. If you go there, you can get a free digital download of my book.
Speaker 1:Okay, nice, and we'll have. Cindy will post that in the show notes for you. Cindy had to sign off because she had to go pick up her kid, so she will take care of that. Thanks for being on. You're welcome to stay on for the last part of the show, but if you have to boogie, that's fine.
Speaker 1:For things of beauty make me cry. I got a couple of them today and the first was related to my Father's Day experience a couple of weeks ago. My son is a surgical resident experience a couple of weeks ago. My son is a surgical resident and he had five days off, six days off, and decided to go out to Northwest Colorado and Utah, which where Carleen's from, to a place called Dinosaur National Monument. I've never been there, but I had one day off that I thought I'm going to do it. So I drove three hours in the morning, left in the morning, drove three hours to Rifle, colorado. My son was ahead of me in his pickup and he arrived there earlier than I did. He had to go get supplies for his camping and such and he was going to be there for a week. So he had to have two vehicles and we hooked up and he's in his driving his big pickup truck that he bought when he was 17. And he loves that truck and is taking great care of it. And then I followed him for another three and a half hours to our destination and then another hour getting into the destination. It is a very remote place. If you're ever out that way, dinosaur National Monument is incredible. It's just an amazing place. But what struck me on the drive? There was barely any radio stations. We both had on a country western station it was old country music from a small little town. There wasn't anything else on. But I just loved following him and just driving behind him and thinking about him and how he felt so good and driving his truck and it was like I was in the seat next to him, even though I was 40 yards behind him in my car. It was just the most awesome experience and I connected it to him.
Speaker 1:If you go to AdventureDadorg you can find all sorts of activities that my son and I used to do adventures. We'd go on and some of the pictures that I like taking the most were having my son hike in front of me in his backpack and taking a picture of him from behind walking ahead of me, and that means so much to me. So much to me when I think back to when he was little and we'd be holding hands or he'd walk in front of me and then he became a young man and could outpace me any day. But to see him confidently ahead of me just brings me so much joy. So we camped out the first night and then we drove into a very remote part of the park. It was a two and a half hour drive on a dirt road down a huge bound side where the confluence of two rivers come together, and at one o'clock I had to say goodbye and drive six and a half hours back to Denver and my wife says that's a lot of driving for not much time, and I was like it was worth it. It was worth every moment. I'm so happy that I took that time to do that, when I could have been doing so much other work like posting on social media, and it just filled me with great joy and that was my Father's Day gift.
Speaker 1:The second one I want to share briefly and I've talked about this before we do a program at my little church that I went to 40 years ago and we still have the program there for mental health consumers and these are the most destitute people you can find. Some live in the streets, the others are in old boarding homes and no one pays attention to these people. They really have nothing. And I was getting ready for bingo. We were playing bingo that evening, we had dinner home-cooked dinner for them, and then we were doing bingo and we have all sorts of prizes shampoos, toiletries, all sorts of stuff art shelf.
Speaker 1:I was bleeding like a stuck pig and these two janky crosses fell out of the box and these are some you would buy in the dollar store and they're maybe six inches tall and it's a little cross on a stand and it has a Bible verse on it and some flowers right, and I wanted to just pick them up and throw them away. I was so irritated with dropping the thing and frustrated, and those fell out. I thought no, I'll put them out. And so I put them on the table and a woman who won the bingo came up and she said now, are those crosses available or is that for the decorations? And I said, no, you can have one. And she said thank you so much. She said my mom passed away several years ago and we don't have the money for a headstone, so I'm going to put this on her grave and that will be her headstone. And I just was awestruck. I was like, wow, here, I was ready to throw that thing away and this woman found beauty in it for her mom. And then, about 15 minutes later, another woman came up and she said can I take the cross? I'm like, of course. And she said it looks so beautiful next to my bed Now two hours ago I was ready to chuck those things away, thinking nobody would want them. They're just janky. But they had deep meaning for both those women. So I want to thank both of them for their beauty and pointing beauty out. To me it was really just incredible.
Speaker 1:I hope you enjoyed the show today. If you did, please share it with a friend. And until next time, we've got several more guests lined up for the summer that I'm excited about. But until then, as a parent, just relax. You only have to be this side of good enough. Thank you so much.