Legit Parenting
Legit Parenting
Danish parents don't have a magic formula for happiness - they have something better. And it's not what you think!
Danish families are consistently ranked as the happiest in the world, but is it their parenting philosophy or something else? We unpack the reality behind Danish parenting success and discover what American parents can actually learn from the Danish way, even without the safety net. A fresh look at what it probably takes to raise the happiest kids in today's world
Welcome to Legit Parenting, where we ditch the social media, perfect parent advice and talk about what really happens and matters in the trenches of parenthood and family life. I'm Craig Nippenberg, father of four, grandfather of two, best-selling author, keynote speaker and family therapist with over 40 years of experience helping parents understand how their kids' brains work. Understand how their kids' brains work. Through my books, private practice and consulting work, I've developed practical strategies that help real parents navigate the tough stuff and build resilient kids. With me is Sidney Moreau, producer and your tell-it-like-it-is mom friend, who's living proof that hot mess mom isn't a stereotype. It's a survival strategy and proof that it's okay. No judgment, no pretending, just real talk from a mom who gets it. Whether you're struggling with school drop-offs, navigating social media drama, trying to hold your marriage together, dealing with a divorce or raising a kid who doesn't fit the mold, you're in the right place. This is Legit Parenting, where we keep it real and remind you just relax. You only need to be this side of good enough. Welcome to Legit Parenting. I'm your host, Craig Nippenberg, along with my producer, sydney Moreau.
Speaker 1:Now we are continuing on our series about parents under stress and this epidemic of parental pressure that the Attorney General pointed out this fall. Now, the number one stressor for American parents three-fourths listed. Financial stress is number one. Second one in terms of percentage 74% of parents are stressed about the thought of school shootings, and we just had another one in Wisconsin a couple of days ago. So I'm going to approach those two topics, but I'm going to do it in a very sort of backwards approach, so I'm going to circle back to it. But the approach is based on a social media parent influencer and it's one of the ones I like. They do it in brain research and they're very good. But they had a post about a book from 2014 called the Danish Way of Parenting and it's got some really good points. I'll read the full title to you is the Danish Way of Parenting what the Happiest People in the World Know About Raising Confident, capable Kids, and indeed Denmark ranks as the most happy place you could live. The authors are Jessica Alexander and Iben Sandahl, s-a-n-d-a-h-l. They rank number one the United States for happiness. We're 17th. We're one place behind Mexico. So, even though we're driven and I believe I heard the US toy industry is like $24 billion industry a year we got everything we want, but we're not that happy. So I was thinking about this post and I'm going to read you.
Speaker 1:They have six points for parenting and I do like them. I think they're all legitimate points, but then I'm going to get to what supports that. What are the mysteries that really allow these parents to do that and why are they so happy? So we'll get to that. But first I want to start with the six points, and they have a very cute oh, this is my dyslexia. I think it's called an acronym. When you have the first letter for each word, that's right. Yeah, acronym, okay, and the acronym is parent. And they've got six points that relate to P-A-R-E-N-T.
Speaker 1:Now, in the introduction they were talking about parenting for happiness and success just happiness and one of the things they do. Because one of the authors is from the US and she married a Dane and lives there and she said in the US we are obsessed with the children being happy and successful. The push for the right college celebrating half birthdays that still drives me off the wall. It's just indulging the children all the time. And these six tips for their happiness aren't about that. They take a quite different approach and that I like. But they really went after the American culture in the book, so I'll give you the six. I'm going to just read some highlights and bear with me as I read out loud. That's not my favorite thing to do. First one P and I couldn't agree more, and this one is play.
Speaker 1:Play helps children develop many essential life skills. Resilience, coping and negotiation skills and self-control are just a few of the valuable lessons learned in unstructured play, as well as stress management, which lowers children's chances of struggling with anxiety as adults, play helps develop an internal locus of control, giving children confidence in their own capabilities, which powerfully lays the groundwork for happiness. It's hard to get that when the play dates are parent-organized and parent-run. I've mentioned before there's research that kids will solve their problems on their own with free play. They'll decide the hierarchy and who bats first, or who gets to do this first, or who gets to be the princess and who's the princess's sister and all that stuff. But as soon as an adult steps in to help them, they abdicate their learning and just let the adult side, when they could have done it for their own. So another point on that is turn off the screens, and that's one of the points they made, and this was in 2014. So think about it now, and that's one of the points they made, and this was in 2014. So think about it now.
Speaker 1:In school, so Scandinavian countries score the highest in academic scores. They're always at the top, and one of the things they do that I just love is 10 minutes a day, 10 minutes every hour. The children go outside to play. They get a 10-minute outside break, no matter the weather and it's not a happy place weather-wise they get to go out and play. That is all that. I just find that incredible.
Speaker 1:The A in PARENT stands for Authenticity, helps Children Develop a Strong Internal Compass Because they Learn to Trust their Emotions. And here's the next part Teaching honesty to ourselves and to our children fosters a strong character value and remember that all emotions are okay and what they get into. That I love is it's okay for parents to express their emotions. The general parenting movement is oh no, you have to hide those emotions and never show stress with your kids or that you're upset with them or heaven forbid you shame them in any way and you're going to destroy them, which isn't true. They don't hold back on their emotions and they let their children know what they feel. And she made a great point, and I've thought this before you can't hide your feelings from your kids. They're incredible lie detectors and all parents have a tell, and a tell is a poker term for something you do that tells the other players whether you're bluffing or you really do have a good hand. So anytime I have a good hand, my tell is usually a big smile and people all fold and I'm like, oh, that didn't work so well, but kids know what's going on.
Speaker 1:Furthermore, they say, different types of praise affect children differently in terms of how they come to see themselves in the world. Giving empty praise or focusing too much on being smart can set up kids for feeling insecure and risk-averse. By engaging in process praise that's, in my first book, the word process we foster a growth mindset rather than a fixed one, which contributes to more persistent, deeply confident and resilient individuals. So what that means is you don't focus on your child's outcome, the test score, whether they won the game or they hit a home run. You focus on their process while doing those things. How was your effort? How did you think your focus went today? How did your studying work? Did it work out for you? How did that work for you? Not so much the outcome and we tend to stress we got to have top grades, win or not, we got to win.
Speaker 1:The other piece to this that I just loved is that in Denmark they really they expose children to all the life's emotions and the hardships and the difficulties. They don't sugarcoat it. And she mentioned the famous Danish writer, hans Christian Andersen, and I didn't know this. But apparently in the Little Mermaid the Little Mermaid which your kids have probably all seen, everybody loves it she turns into what? A princess or something at the end, but the way it was originally written, she turns into seafoam. Because of her sadness, there is no happy ending to that story. Because of her sadness, there is no happy ending to that story. And that's what Danish parents focus on in their tales and their stories. It shows all the hardships of life. They don't protect their kids from those until they have it. We tend to protect the kids and then something happens and then you have to dig your way out of it. Try to help explain it to your kids. So you're hurting them by not exposing them to the real realities of life.
Speaker 1:Reframing is the art, and this is something I do every day in my business. Reframing is a powerful way to change our children's perceptions about life, and our own Simplest one. I had a little boy years ago who had diabetes and it was quite a process for him and we were talking about it and he said at first I thought my diabetes was an elephant-sized problem, but now I think it's more of a mouse size. And this sweet child moved away years ago and as a parting gift to me he made a little mouse out of the cartridges from all his diabetes. He made a little mouse out of the cartridges from all his diabetes equipment so the little flask and a syringe and he made a mouse with ears for me and we named him Bob the Mouse. That's reframing when you help your kids see. This isn't the end of the world.
Speaker 1:The book says how we choose to see things affects the way we feel about things. Realistic optimists don't ignore negative information. Rather, they simply focus on the other information at hand to write a richer, more loving story about themselves, their children and life in general. Reframing can change our experience of the world and it makes our own and our own children's lives happier in the process. So it's that idea you think of some of the old statements that I would hear my mother say when life gives you a lemon, make lemonade. Or one of my favorites, and I remind myself in this when I'm working out whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
Speaker 1:And also, again focusing on what did your child learn through this experience? The Danish one. The example she gave was if someone would say it's cold and rainy outside, you'd say that's why I'm so glad we're inside. So it's really how you looked at it. And another example they had was the child who told the parent that one of the author's kids said I played terrible today. It was a soccer game and they're all upset about how terrible they played. And the dad said did you break your leg? And the kid went on about. I didn't score any goals. And the dad said but did you break your leg? He kept pushing him on that point and then they remind him about how he scored two goals last time. And sometimes you don't. And that's life. E my favorite of all.
Speaker 1:Empathy is an essential, essentially human tendency. While the level of empathy in our society has dropped and the level of narcissism has increased, that is for sure. Research shows that we're wired more for empathy than selfishness. Research shows that we're wired more for empathy than selfishness. By being less judgmental and shaming, we can better understand the vulnerability in ourselves and in others, which brings us closer together, forging deeper, more forgiving relationships and making us happier overall. Practicing empathy teaches children to respect others and themselves, which makes for more profound sense of well-being.
Speaker 1:Now, I've talked about this a lot. Both of my books really focus on empathy. The first one, I stamp every book with Make your Empathy a Verb, and really in the first one, talking about child brain development, it's about helping your kids be empathetic and do something about it. And it also applies to parents, which means don't shame other parents. And when you look at the social media posts that you tell you're doing it all wrong, you feel miserable and you don't need to be. You just need to be good enough. Now think about the power so the negative power of watching something that tells you you're doing it wrong and you're in your house by yourself and you're looking at all this thinking I failed, versus when you get together with a friend who's also a parent and you take the opportunity to be vulnerable and say my kids are just driving me over the edge, I'm not sure I can take this, and then the other parent says me too and now you have a bond with each other and you can support each other.
Speaker 1:I was just talking with a dear friend of mine who recently had an infant, and I'm pretty good at asking new moms about how their adjustment is going and any signs of postpartum. And she said, yeah, there's some of that. It hasn't been too bad, but I've had some. And I said but such a blessing for moms that they don't have to hide it in shame and feel like they're the worst mom ever. They have these thoughts and they keep it to themselves. And now we know it's a medical problem involving your hormones, the drastic change in your hormones. It's a medical issue and you can tell other moms about your struggles as well. That makes you close and uses empathy for good versus shaming others.
Speaker 1:And there is the point of young people. We all do this. The college kids, the 20-year-olds, are always thinking about their past and their parents and how their parents messed up and how they're going to be different. And then they actually start having kids and they realize, whoa, this is a lot harder than I thought. I was being too judgmental, but it helps. One reframe I heard from a friend was you know, the 20-year-olds are developing ideas of how they want to parent. And then it meets reality. But they're trying to set standards, which is a good thing, but then reality hits the next one no ultimatums. But then reality hits the next one no ultimatums. Is a reminder that power struggles can lead us to lose our temper. Many parents scream or use physical punishment as a form of discipline. We lose control, and yet we expect our children not to.
Speaker 1:And in an authoritarian parenting style, trust and closeness with their kids is replaced with fear. It works in the short term, but can have consequences in the long run. The Danish, more diplomatic parenting style fosters trust and resilience in children. Kids who feel respected and understood, who in turn are helped to understand and respect rules, develop a much stronger sense of self-control and ultimately grow up to be happier, more emotionally stable adults. Now, in the research, authoritarian parenting does not hold up very well. Rather, it's the word that's almost the same. The highest one is authoritative parenting. Authoritative parenting means you have rules, you have structure. Yes, you even have consequences, sometimes, believe it or not, even though that's now, you're not supposed to do that anymore. You have those rules and boundaries, but you're responsive to your kids' needs. You listen to their emotions, you help them process it. It's a blend of being nurturing but also giving the guidance children need.
Speaker 1:Now I like to say that the one thing in the research that's related to child misbehavior the most is parental inconsistency. And that means when you say this is the rule but you don't follow through on the rule, then kids get out of control. They need to know here's the rule, here's what happens if you don't follow the rule. Now I used to say pre-COVID go for a, b, get an 80% consistency, you're fine. After COVID I dropped it down to 51%. So there's those moments when you've told your kid don't leave your toys out. That's the rule. You got to pick up your toys before you go on to something else and they don't. And then you get all upset and bring them in there and they have to take care of it and it's a big consecration. That would be consistency. But there are so many times as a parent when you're just exhausted and you don't feel like dealing with it and you don't feel like getting your kid off Paw Patrol to come pick up their toys or to get off their social media to do something. So you just do it yourself and that's just fine. You're a good enough parent. If you can be consistent 51% of the time, you'll be fine.
Speaker 1:Now, this one in response to parenting, this one for little ones doesn't work so well because they're illogical. They just know what they want and they will drive it home and when you say no, they're going to ask why. Now, with little ones, a lot of times trying to explain that to them just leads to more whys or counterarguments. Right, and at some point you say because I'm your parent and that's what I said and that's the rule, and you leave it at that. Now, as they get older and more logical, you want to engage your children in discussions about yeah, that's why we have this rule and this is why we're establishing it in a logical way. Again, if they keep arguing with you, then you just stop. But you want to engage them in the process, and one of the things they do is the teacher on the first day has the children make up the rules for the classroom. And so instead of the teacher saying, hey, children, here's our poster, these are the rules, follow the kids make the rules. And I was tickled because in 40 years of running therapy groups for children, that's what we always do. The first session. The group makes the rules for us and 99% of the time they're the same rules I would have come up with. They're just perfect. The kids get it. But when they make it themselves, they feel like they're committed to the group cause and they had a voice in it, and that's a wonderful thing.
Speaker 1:If you're getting ready to go to the store, you might talk about okay, what's our rules for behavior in the store and what's the rules on whether you get something or not? Or if you go to a sporting event with your kids, my God, it's so expensive. The old circus I don't even they don't even have it anymore the old Barnum and Bailey circus I took my kid two years ago. It was the most expensive crap I've ever seen in my life and everything was tripled the price. And of course, any child wants all of it. And so before you go to a sporting event, you talk to your kids now we're going to get Dippin' Dots, that's it. And if you want something else you'd have to use your own allowance for that. But don't be asking me about everything you see there, because kids see all that and they love it and they want it all, so you join in the process. Okay, what's our rules for this activity? Or we're going on a trip. What are the rules we're going to have? We're doing a car trip. How should we make that work better? What could we do that we have a pleasant ride and have a fun trip for everyone?
Speaker 1:The other piece to this and this has to do with the reframing they talk about preschoolers and how they don't have a phrase for terrible twos. Their phrase I don't even know how to say the word for toddlers is they're learning about boundaries and also their own will. And so when you get to those toddler ages, when they know their desires and they are quick to go after them, they're pushing boundaries all the time and they like to see this. Oh, they're learning how to assert themselves. Isn't that joyful? But again, joint decision-making and problem-solving, I think, is a great idea.
Speaker 1:I can remember my mother in fifth grade wouldn't allow me to see James Bond movies. I can remember my mother in fifth grade wouldn't allow me to see James Bond movies and she explained to me it was because she didn't want her son to objectify women as nothing but bikinis. Now, I didn't agree with her. I really wanted to. I snuck to the James Bond movies. Me and my buddies would sneak in, but I get it and she explained it to me and that's lasted with me a long time that we don't objectify people as just bodies, and it was a great lesson and she was happy to explain it to me.
Speaker 1:And finally, the T stands for togetherness. Their word for it, I think, is pronounced Higgy H-Y-G-E Sydney. You got any thoughts on that, higgy? Higgy H-Y-G-E Sydney. You got any thoughts on that, heidi? Higgy, I'll look it up. I'm not sure how you say that one. Yeah, they have that in their thing. Well, let's say it for you. Okay, I'm going to go with Higgy.
Speaker 1:Our ways of fostering our closest relationships, which are one of the biggest predictors of a person's happiness it's your social life and family. By learning how to iggy or cozy around that's what it means cozy around we can improve our family get-together to make them more pleasant and memorable experiences for our kids. By leaving an eye at the door and focusing on the we, we can eliminate a lot of unnecessary drama and negativity sometimes associated with family gathering. Happy families and strong social support, you heal happier kids and if you think back to your own childhood, different family get-togethers you had that were just magical. As you get into your 20s, you form a group of friends like that show Friends. You have your group of friends that you feel into your 20s. You form a group of friends like that, show Friends. You have your group of friends that you feel so joyously and comfortable with when you don't push a lot of togetherness, and I love the cozy bit because they live in a horribly cold place Dry saunas, by the way. I'm putting one in my house, ditching the hot tub trying to get dry sauna, because in Mauritius they're the best for reducing inflammation, and whole families there in Denmark and Norway and all those countries that love to get to their saunas is the whole family naked and just hanging out together, and that is a really great thing.
Speaker 1:They had a quote by famous basketball coach Phil Jackson, who won I don't know how many championships he won the Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan and his quote goes a good team becomes a great team when they go from I to we. It's the whole team together. There's no I in team and I just love that statement. So find your community. If you're a parent out there, find your community. Whether it's family or not. It's a little different nowadays. So ancient peoples pretty much there were nomads, but you grew up in a small town and you stayed in a small town for your whole life and everybody was born at the same church, buried from the church, married from the church. People didn't move around a lot. Our world today is very transient. So many of you listeners out there may not have family around you this holiday, so find other families to join you and form a sense of community.
Speaker 1:And the last thing on this one that they've talked about and Europeans are much more in tune with this is work-life balance. It's having a balance between your work and your outside life and being with others and enjoyment in your life. They very much stress that. Although when the younger generation, we found they're much more attuned to talking about their work-life balance, and both of my wife and I we run a business. She was a full-time breadwinner in her first marriage. I've had to be the breadwinner too, and we don't really have one. We're like, yeah, that's the thing Used to when I was younger, starting out, but once I grew the business, that went out the window.
Speaker 1:But as much as you can, finding time for Higgy, so that's the sixth thing it's hygge. I would have never gotten that one. It's hygge. How do I do Dutch? What is that Hygge, which is called? Say it again. I think it's Huga, huga, yeah, okay. So practice Huga, yeah, the sweatshirt with that on it, yeah. There you go, okay. So there's the six things. They're wonderful, great thing.
Speaker 1:So that led me to thinking about how do they do that as parents and stay emotionally stable, and especially with our parents. Three-quarters are completely stressed out by financial concerns. So I did a little research and had quite a lot of fun doing it, and I looked up Danish social and family support. So this is, by law, what those families have to support them Child benefits, tax-free payments received for every child until they are 18. Amounts vary based on age and income level. So they get a check every three months for younger ones, then every month when they turn 13. So they get a check every three months for younger ones, then every month when they turn 13, you get a check from the government to help support your family and meet your child's needs. Can you imagine that that would just be wild? Parental leave generous paid leave for both parents to take care for newborns Could be a month, two months. If you have to move, you have time off to take care of your family obligations. Or if you have an elderly parent who needs support or going through a death, they have generous parental leave.
Speaker 1:Daycare subsidies Could you imagine Government support for child care costs, making access to daycare more affordable? Right now in Colorado they are trying to do that, but the first thing they've been working on is getting more people to open child care centers, because there's not enough. So we don't have enough child care centers and only the very poor get it subsidized. Don't have enough child care centers and only the very poor get it subsidized. Our daughter is a single mom with two kids and has a young one and looked into it but she was made too much to qualify. But there your child has daycare subsidies, even down to infants.
Speaker 1:Education support, student grants available for further education and higher education the cost of a university tuition for a Danish child is free. It doesn't cost them a dime to go to college. They even get grants for living costs. They call it paid to get study. If you keep your grades up, you get money for rent and for food.
Speaker 1:Now think about your financial stress a big one, and it usually starts out your kids are little and maybe you open we opened a college invest account for both my kids. We started with those right away and every month you're thinking about oh, we need to put more money into the college invest fund Because here we're looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars to get them through school. So you're a young family, you're trying to put money, but every month you look at the bills and you're like we're not able to this month, or maybe some Christmas money we'll put in there. And you try your hardest to save up but it's overwhelming the amount that is going to be owed. So by the time they get to college you may not have saved enough to do that. And now you're looking at taking out huge loans or for your student and we have young students graduating with 50, 60, 100,000 in debt Our graduate students. It always amazes me, especially if you're at a private school, but for social workers who go to Denver University, they come out with $150,000, $200,000 in debt and they'll never be able to, and especially on social work salaries, they're never going to own a home. It's going to be a life of just trying to get by and pay off those loans. So imagine if you didn't have to pay for college and it was free for your kids. What relief that would give you as a parent from the financial stress.
Speaker 1:And, right up there too, healthcare access Universal healthcare system providing free access to general practitioners, hospital and specialist care. What an amazing thing. Here we're stuck with the corporate model and, as we know, several weeks ago a young man assassinated the head of UnitedHealthcare and what really was the most telling of that was the social media feedback on X, I think they call it now. It used to be whatever, but all the social media were young people supporting that. He was shot, that the corporate greed and destroying our healthcare system.
Speaker 1:Story yesterday that many of the healthcare companies now use AI to decide whether your surgery or whatever your medical need or your medical care is approved, and it does it in one second. It just goes through a quick list of checks boxes and either denies you or not. That's what we've got. And a good friend of mine I saw the other day was supposed to have a back stimulator put in the back his back to relieve a back pain. He said chronic back pain, and they did a trial and it worked for him, and so back four weeks ago they submitted to get it covered and it was denied and his doctor's assistant said yeah, it's because it's November, you're going to have to wait until January. They'll approve it then, but then you'll have to pay a deductible again. Other things have disability benefits for people who are disabled, including children, housing allowance towards rent costs for eligible individual and extra social assistance for those who are poor, who are poor or because they've gone through an illness or a divorce, and, based on your age and work history, you can get social assistance. If you put them all together, is there any doubt why they're so happy. They've got a system in place that truly supports families, that takes families seriously and values the assets of their children.
Speaker 1:I was on an interview with Colorado Public Radio with two high-powered executive moms talking about parents under stress, and one of the moms she was so articulate After the interview I said to her let me know when you run for governor I'll vote for you. She knew it and we were talking about let's have a parent. We have it in Colorado, but not all the countries do. Is parental paid leave off? Having parental leave when you have a baby? Not all states have that. We have that in Colorado but doesn't exist other places. Or more flexible daycare, maybe companies having daycare centers, and she had a list of those things that would really benefit our parents. The child tax credit, which I believe is expiring soon. I'm not sure if that's going to get renewed or not but that helped families during COVID. So we're talking about just trying to piecemeal together some of these things.
Speaker 1:Danish parents have it all, so they don't have to have the stress of they don't have enough money for preschool right or for daycare. Now does that come at a cost? It sounds leveling, but so I was thinking about it's a socialist country, right? What's the cost of all that? It's your taxes, but I so then I thought I'll do some research on how much money does the average Dane make compared to the average American worker in a like working class? So I looked up working class medium income for working class In Denmark.
Speaker 1:The average Dane employee makes $83,000 a year. The equivalent of $83,000 a year. With all of that other stuff thrown in, it leaves them the highest rate of disposable income in the EU. Each Dane person has a lot, so disposable income is the extra money you have after you've paid for your necessities, so you have your health care, your mortgage, everything's taken care of your food. They have $33,000, $33,700 in disposable income for trips, for going out to restaurants, for shopping. They have quite a bit of disposable income. The US middle class income is 80,000 a year.
Speaker 1:Now there is a tax difference. The average worker there pays 36 percent in taxes. Their rate goes up to 50 percent for the wealthy and it caps at 50%. But the average worker pays 36% in taxes. Here. I'm guessing it's probably around 20%, 22%, depending on your income, and it goes up as your income goes up. So there's not a huge difference in the amount. There is a difference in the taxes and of course people are going to say no, that's socialism, we don't support that. But it's pretty clear they support their families financially and what a burden relief that would be for our families not to be skimming in debt and worried about paying your basic bills or food security housing as the rates of houses continue to climb and climb. That really supports those six points. Without that it would be a different story and I personally feel we need to continue to work as a country to support our parents more and our families more and our children. They are our greatest asset. Now, as far as number two on our list of stress that 74% of parents worry about school shootings. So I thought I'm going to research that a little bit.
Speaker 1:In the United States we have 1.2 guns per person. In this country, we have more guns than we have people per person in this country we have more guns than we have people In Denmark. They have 0.1 gun per person 0.1 compared to 1.2. In our country, after a shooting at East High School here in Denver a couple years ago, a reporter did some investigation. They interviewed students and they found the average student saying 50% said that they could get a hold of a gun within an hour if they needed it.
Speaker 1:You don't get to do that in Denmark. They have some of the strictest laws on guns. You're only allowed to have them for target shooting or hunting. It's a rigorous background check and the firearm has to be registered. In this country you can go to gun shows. You can buy online and get any gun. It doesn't have to be registered. You can buy it from your friend Bob and there you're not allowed to have firearms for self-protection. That is not one of the reasons you get to have a firearm In the US.
Speaker 1:We're all about now? Self-protection. How does that relate to school shootings? 2009 to 2018, the US had 288 school shootings a year. That's our average and I believe it's going up since then. The second country was Canada. The second country was Canada. They had two In Denmark zero, in fact. When I looked into more about Denmark and school shootings, there's never been any. They had two mass shootings, which is four more people dying, and they were in malls to 2022, zero at schools, and I couldn't even find any in the history of Denmark.
Speaker 1:We in the United States are drowning in guns and I published an article several months ago for a journal, national Journal, on the intersections between the brain and guns and social media, between the brain and guns and social media, and how social media has just hijacked our kids' brains. And many of these shootings you hear about every day start on social media, where somebody wants to have a beef with somebody else. The other person wants to say face, so they escalate. Then everybody weighs in on social media about you've got to face that person, you got to take them out, and then we have all these shootings going on. And I just read an article the other day the increase of huge fights in our high schools and like gangs of kids. There was one where like 15 kids came to the cafeteria and started a big fight, beating a couple of kids up and all the other students running in with their phones to record it and then spreading it everywhere. That's psychomass contagion when you see others doing stuff and you join in and it just spreads and spreads.
Speaker 1:And I am a gun owner. I've been very open about that. I've written my second book. One of my favorite treasures is the firearms I had for my father. I totally get guns. I love to target shoot. It's one of my favorite things to do. But I never heard my father say we need guns for self-protection and he would never thought that semi-automatic weapons could just be sold and bought and traded. And now you can even build them on your computer with the plastics and get parts online and build your own guns and silencers. It is over the top. What do we do? This is that CPR panel I was on.
Speaker 1:We really need to advocate and vote preschool for all children. We need paid family leave and reasonably priced daycare. We also need to really look at what are we doing with college costs or trade schools. Many children would benefit from trade schools and thankfully, in Colorado, my daughter was a beneficiary of being able to go to a trade school and learn cosmetology at no cost, but that's rare. Our country needs to do more to support the education of our kids and states need to get back and involved in funding higher education. And secondly, support sensible gun legislation. We need background checks for everybody buying a gun. They should be registered. And do we really need semi-automatics? I, just as a gun owner, I just abhor that.
Speaker 1:Some of you might be saying that's socialism. We don't want to be socialists, but we don't have to do it all. We can do some things that would go a long way to support our families, and that's where my vote is Okay. So there's Danish parenting and what supports it, and I think if we had support like that, our families would be a lot more peaceful and calm and parents wouldn't be under so much stress. Now I want to end with two things. Of course, things of beauty make me cry, but the first I think I'm starting a new category and I'm calling it the Legit Parenting Award For parents that do things that. I think that is just perfect. That is good enough, and I had this very interesting ride with an Uber driver named Todd in Spokane, washington.
Speaker 1:I was up there a month or so ago to see my son who was doing a two-month residency in pediatric surgery, and so he's coming home on Christmas Eve. He's done at Christmas Eve at five o'clock and then he's going to start driving back from Washington. It'll probably take him a couple days to get here, but I had the Uber driver to take me to Orange Theory. My son was at the hospital and I wanted to go to Orange Theory and we started talking and he told me he had two elementary children, one in third and one in fifth. He's a single dad, works at Uber and then he's starting the law school, so he's really trying to put things together for his kids.
Speaker 1:And he was telling me about how, with his son, the younger one, the school kept pushing him to get him on medication for his hyperactivity and they said he's constantly causing disruption in the class. And so he said, can I observe? And they were like, yeah, and he spent the morning observing from the back or wherever, in another room maybe. And he said the entire morning the kids are on the computers, doing all their studies on a computer, their own laptop, and the teacher doesn't teach, they just keep kids on task. And then the teachers had them all put on noise-canceling headphones so that they wouldn't talk to others. And he said I looked at my son and he said, yeah, about every 15 minutes you might talk to his neighbor, but that's part of being a kid. And I'm like you're right, that is part of being a kid. And the instruction was ab. You're right, that is part of being a kid. And the instruction was abysmal. There was no engagement with the teacher, no engagement in group work where the students debate and talk and problem solve. They're all just sitting at their laptops.
Speaker 1:And that's what he decided to take his son out and now he homeschools his children for school. He took them out of the public schools and he's homeschooling two kids. So he is an Uber driver trying to get by, a single parent trying to go to law school and he's homeschooling his two kids. And he said to me his kids have never been happier. They get involved and the homeschool networks have great opportunities. If you're a homeschool parent, they have get-togethers, you do field trips together with them, you get together for all sorts of learning opportunities. And he said my kids are loving it, they're just learning all the time. They spend a lot of time outside and they're excelling. So I thought to myself. I said, don, I'm going to put you on my podcast. I'm going to mention you because you are a legit parent that's taken all that stress on himself. Now for things of beauty, make me cry. This one's a little what it did. It's a little controversial.
Speaker 1:So here in Denver, like many of our cities, we have massive numbers of homeless people and pretty much any intersection you go to in Denver there's people on every corner of the intersection asking for money and for support. And I do have a friend that works for the city of Colorado and one of their tasks is to deal with homelessness and she explains to me that, yes, in fact these groups at intersections they actually have like their own little hierarchy and then they decide who gets what corner and if a new person comes along and takes one of their spots, they chase them off. So they defend their little territory and some of them are involved in criminal activities or drug sales activities or drug sales. And so in some counties here south of Denver they actually have signs up about don't give to the homeless. Sign your money to this organization to try to help the homeless and I support it through our church. We have a food bank, a clothing bank that people can go to. I often invite them to come for our social club program for dinner on the last Monday of the month. Another church where we attend they have a weekly Sunday dinner for homeless people and all kinds of support and job training and I try to refer them to things that will help them in the long term. So I'm not really big into giving the money out at the intersections.
Speaker 1:But it was Thanksgiving Day at the intersections. But it was Thanksgiving Day and I raced home to my wife and daughter at the church, headed over to my sister-in-law's house for Thanksgiving dinner with the whole family and I ran home to pick up and to roast 40 lamb chops. On the trigger and that was my gift to the dinner party were lamb chops which I love and they're just delicious. So I got them all and I put them in the pan and foil and I got in the car and I'm driving out to Littleton, which is one of the suburbs where you don't see nearly the homeless you have here in Denver, and I got to this intersection which is two major streets, east and west and north and south, and you do a cloverleaf to get off the one and to get on the other one, southbound, and it's these very long stoplights and it's elevated so it's on a bridge and so any homeless person getting there would be quite tricky to walk into that spot, so you'd never see anybody there.
Speaker 1:And here it is Thanksgiving Day. I'm racing over there, I hit the red light and I'm just chilling and I look to my left and there's this elderly homeless man with a sign and I was just like wow, I can't believe he's here. And so I rolled down my window and I have a petty cash bag in the side of my car that I keep for cash when I need cash. And I just reached in and pulled out a bill and held it up and he came up to the door. I didn't even know what it was. And then he opened it up and it was a $10 bill and I don't believe his eyesight was very good. He held it really close to his face and the look on his face of awe, of just being like he had just won the lottery when he realized it was $10. And the look on his face just filled me with such gratitude for him and he said thank you so much, sir. And before I left, I said no, thank you.
Speaker 1:You blessed me today, you blessed my Thanksgiving, and it reminded me a line about Mother Teresa that God writes in our lives, but it's not a street writing. It's through the crooked parts of our lives that God writes the place that you don't expect it and the vessels that carry—and you don't have to be religious. You can use the universe, the vessels for clarity or seeing God's action or the universe's actions in our lives, isn't a perfect vessel at all. They're just regular old vessels, like that old guy, so I want to thank him for being there and blessing me on Thanksgiving. Okay, as always, I'm crying. Sydney, thanks for being on today. You'll hear this after the holidays, but I want to wish you all a happy holidays and I hope you get to have hoogie. Is that how you said it? I'm going with it. Was it hookah, hookah? I think I forget. Yes, cozy, yeah, hookah. Thank you, and if you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. And until next time. There's been continuing in the new year. Just relax, we.