Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So we're really excited today to welcome a new friend and colleague to us, George Sachs. George, we're so thrilled to have you here. Welcome.

George Sachs: Thank you. I'm very excited to be here.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So George comes with lots of qualifications and credentials. He is a child psychologist. He specializes in the treatment of ADHD and autism spectrum disorders in children, teens, and adults. He's got lots of Gestalt training and all kinds of other expertise and he's here with us because we've met him because he's working and collaborating with a group of other professionals to create a new mobile app for people with ADHD to really help them use their full potential by using the principles of CBT, cognitive behavior therapy, which is a really effective modality for working with people with ADD very, very similar in our experience to the work we do as coaches. And so we were really excited. We've had a great time beginning to collaborate with them and really participating by adding some content to this new app they're creating. So George, welcome. We're thrilled to have you and let's step into a new conversation.

George Sachs: Absolutely.

Diane Dempster: George, start by telling us a little bit about what you do with families of complex kids and how you came to start doing this work.

George Sachs: I was a complex kid, so let's start there, I think, but more of the spacey, inattentive type of ADHD, so I went under the radar in school and made grades that were good enough. This was in the '70s, and '80s, where the report card came out once a year, maybe twice a year, and I never, ever remember any lectures or discussions about grades. I think they were like C's and B's. So, I really appreciate looking back on that because I don't think I could have done better, and I say that in parentheses. I don't think I wanted to do better. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah. My son would say the same thing. 

George Sachs: But I was excelling in all sorts of other things, like, just creative projects, and sports and making friends, and I had a really nice childhood, and have a great relationship with my parents in the '80s. And the other challenge I had was a sister, who was an older sister who was very bright, naturally, and had good executive functioning and went on to the University of Chicago, and a younger brother, who was very bright, with great, excellent executive functioning and went on to Brown University. Of course, internalized my own, like, am I smart enough? What about me but that's not really one of my issues. And I really have to thank my parents for that because they allowed me to do what I was going to do naturally, and to support those different things, and to never really emphasize, like grades for me. Interestingly, they never emphasized grades for my sister and brother. They were all innate, like, desire for them, and interests. And I think that's just so important. You could call it free-range parenting, but I just think, I think that does a disservice to them because they probably thought about this, like, this child does not really show a lot of interest in school, and he's getting C's, and B's but you know what? He's happy, and we're happy so let's just let it be.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Did you ever ask them?

George Sachs: I haven't. I'm thinking out loud now that I should ask them, but I am grateful for that because I don't have any feeling like I'm not as smart. I just have different talents than they do.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Clearly, you have those talents, though, because you circled around and went back and got a Ph.D., and you have a doctor in front of your name now. So, something shifted for you.

George Sachs: Well, age, so yeah, so then I went to high school and college and was not a stellar student, and then it took me 10 years to really get back to finding my passion, and that was graduate school, but I was 32. And at that point, I think there was a lot of motivation and fear like this is kind of the thing. People say, well, fear is not a great motivator, but I think it is a good motivator in some cases when I had tried a lot of other things and then realized whatever I was trying in my 20s wasn't really working. It wasn't suited for me. But going back to school, I did because I wanted to do well. And so, to answer the original question, I love working with kids. And in the process of studying child psychology, you have to focus on ADHD because it's such a big issue. And I was doing some of the self-reports or parent reports on kids and realizing like, this was me. This was exactly me. And so it wasn't until I was in my 30s that I realized I had ADHD, and it was always underreported, but again, I never feel like I wish I had been diagnosed because you know what? I just don't know what could have been different. and I think this is an interesting topic. I did learn this in graduate school. I remember in class that even psychotherapy can have negative consequences. Like just committing to the therapist, or the cost of the therapist, or feeling negative feelings, but I think we have to acknowledge that same thing with children. When we diagnose them and then treat them it can have negative consequences in some ways. So it's important to think about both the positive and negative and weighing all these because I think some parents rushed into, like, I need this, this, this and this, and this to help him because they have ADHD. Parents say, oh, he needs therapy. And I said, why does he need therapy? Does he, I say he but he or she have emotional issues? Because then they would need therapy? Are they feeling bullied or isolated, or ostracized, or are they angry? No, they just have a hard time focusing. Okay, then, why don't you spend the money on parenting classes instead of individual therapy classes? I always recommend parent coaching or parent training because I say you need a master's degree in parenting, and that's where the effort needs to go as opposed to the individual CBT training for an eight-year-old. Can't you help him focus? Why don't we start with asking you to meditate? If you can meditate every day for 20 minutes, then we'll have expectations that your child will be able to focus better. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Music to my ears, I got to say. Go ahead, Di.

Diane Dempster: Exactly. So what I want to take us back to because it sounds like your experience as a kid, where your parents just let you be who you are, on some level, and evolve in a way, is really key to how you are focused on helping families. How does that actually translate into a message for parents of complex kids?

George Sachs: A lot of it is, as you know, anxiety. Not with the child but with the parent. And what does this mean? Oh my God, my child has ADHD? Oh, my God, what do we need? I've just read this book. Their whole life is ruined. So, a lot of it is managing the anxiety that the child is going to be fine if you don't make it worse. If you just allow the child because, generally, the child has other interests, and that's not necessarily just video games. I'm working with this child now who is 15, and the parents are like, he's got to get A's. But meanwhile, he's trading cryptocurrencies, and what was the thing he was doing and all sorts of cool stuff that somebody would think is a distraction. But what I tell the parents is like, look, are they going to use biology and 20 in 10 years? Probably not. But all these things that they are passionate about will definitely translate into some successful career. So this child may be very successful on Wall Street or doing something like that. So I think if we allow the child with ADHD to pursue their passions, and I say this at the expense of their grades, then I think the child will actually be more successful.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I couldn't agree with you more. There's so many different directions. I feel like I could go into this conversation with you. And the one that's coming up, which I don't want to go through, but I think I need to, is that one of the number one things we hear from parents right now is, yeah, but the only thing they care about is the screen is the technology. And having this conversation of maybe that is their future career in some way is not consoling to them, I find. So what about the kids really being hyper-focused on a screen to the extent of the rest of their life?

George Sachs: Okay, well, when I grew up at the very beginning of video games, like Pong. I remember Pong and Space Invaders, and we never had a console or anything like that. But when I started in my late early 40s, when I started really doing private practice with kids and teens, and that's what they were talking about, I went out and bought myself because I remember one child was into Pokemon, and he was talking about Pokemon. And I read something online about Pokemon. And he looked at me, this child had Asperger's, I mean, autism. So he looked at me and he goes, you don't know anything about Pokemon? And so he caught me. And then I said, you know what? He's absolutely right. I'm going to go learn as much as I can by playing these video games. So I bought what was it back then? I played Pokemon. I forgot that device. 

Diane Dempster: The Game Boy, probably a Game Boy. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: It was the next evolution of that. I forget between that and the Switch, which I bought. And I bought the PlayStation, and I started actually liking a lot of these games. So I could communicate particularly with the boys, although some girls play, but one thing that's important to know about the video games is that they are really a community in a social device. Because nowadays, you can really chat with other people, friends, and a group of friends will say, let's get on this together. And for boys, I think it's important to be doing something while they're connecting. I think girls are a little bit different, but I think because of the biology of the male. I mean, if they're just sitting talking, it's uncomfortable. So what I say to the parent, look, these games, you need limits, so I do support limits, and that might be no video games on the weekdays. Or maybe on Friday, they can start. So I think limits are very important. You can't just let your kid do whatever they want with the video games because they're built to be addictive. With the reward systems and leveling up, it's very hard to stop yourself, particularly if you're shy and you're not going out into the world, so the video game games can be attractive. So, I think it is the parental role to set limits on the screen time, but that doesn't mean one hour a month. I think I like to play big for three hours or two hours on the weekend on Saturday, another two hours on Sunday. 

Diane Dempster: I'm guessing that there's probably not a rule of thumb for every family. But what you're saying is that the parents need to play a role in terms of creating a boundary. And I'm going to take you back to this concept of letting kids be who they are. And part of that is playing and part of that is connecting with their friends and all of those other things. And so I want to take you back to your comment about pursuing their passions. And I think parents are curious as to how do I inspire that in my kids, especially my kid just wants to do video games, but-

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Or with an ADD kid, they tried this for three weeks, and then that for three weeks, and then that for a week, and so oftentimes it takes them a long time to find something that they're really passionate about as well.

George Sachs: I think this is the parental role to introduce, and you can use the video games as a way to say, okay, you can play two hours on Saturday, but you need some exercise. So here are the choices. Some kids with ADHD prefer more individual sports like tennis or karate, judo. I actually recommend judo over karate. This is a sidebar, but judo, if you can find one in your neighborhood, you actually grab the other child, the two children grab each other and try to move each other and that's going to be a little bit more satisfying for a child with ADHD than just doing forms, which is what they do in karate or Taekwondo. Some Taekwondo and karate places, they fight each other, but judo has no punching.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Just so you know, I grew up doing judo, and my dad was a black belt in judo, so you just validated his whole parenting experience. Thank you.

George Sachs: But I do think it's important to find activities, and if the child moves from one thing to another thing, I say to myself, okay, that's fine, but are they doing that because of the fear of failure or like, they can't do it. And this is the value of martial arts, or team sports or things because, with martial arts, you have to stick with it to get to the next level, so there is motivation. Something like a musical instrument, it's hard to really know when I get better. So I think about finding things where there's some benchmark of success. When you join judo or martial arts, you get the white belt or the yellow belt, and that's an immediate sign of success for a child, and then they can get the next belt. I think those kinds of activities where there's signs of success that the child can feel, particularly if a child doesn't have confidence, are really important. But I do think a parent needs to expose kids to different things. That's another thing, parents, and I understand that parents feel tremendous pressure from peers and social media, like my kid has to be like a master so they can get into college, particularly about college. But there's a lot of pressure for a child to master something and never give up. But I don't remember anything like that in my childhood. I don't know. That seems to be a new phenomenon, like you have to have 10,000 hours of piano or something like that. I mean, I did Little League, and all the other kids in the neighborhood did Little League. You know what I mean? I don't remember-

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah. I totally know what you mean. I'm just laughing because I've gone through the experience as a kid and then as a parent to a kid. And my deal was if you make a commitment to do it for this term, then you got to complete your commitment. But if you don't want to stick with it after that, you don't have to and so there was always this negotiation with three kids with different interests. But I hear what you're saying. Mastery was never really high on my list. I just wanted them to stick with something. But I'm not in New York City, so it's a different environment.

George Sachs: I don't know if the Boy Cub Scouts, or Boy Scouts, or Girl Scouts, or whatever is still popular. But that's another thing like you get the badges, and then you want to get the next badge. So there's motivation to continue after one semester.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So let's shift because I love the way that you're looking at this and this notion of let's let kids have a childhood. Let them be kids. So what do you think it's important for parents to understand better about their kids? What is it parents are missing?

George Sachs: It's a very good question. A couple of things. Not in any order. I'm in New York City, so maybe it's skewed, but I think what's missing is that children need downtime, and school is not downtime. So imagine coming home from work, I tell parents after 6 p.m. and then you have two more hours of work, plus all the chores, like actual work. And then your boss called you and asked, "Did you do the work? It would just be horrible, and that's what children experience. I just think kids need a lot of downtime, and downtime means just rolling around literally to decompress but also to be creative and think about, oh, that would be cool to do that and pursue their interests. You have to do nothing to find something.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: You have to do nothing to find something. I just want to capture that quote. 

Diane Dempster: But what's coming up for me is a lot of parents even have this vision of what downtime is supposed to look like. It's sort of the kid who wants to do this, but mom's like, no, this is the way we relax. We relax by going for a walk. It's just sort of, we're almost even controlling what relaxation looks like.

George Sachs: Yeah. So that's one thing like downtime. And then it depends on the developmental age but peers are so important, friendships. Everything revolves around friendship starting into eight, seventh grade, sixth grade, and how important friends are. And that's like, you can't play video games. This is my entire world. So basically, you're saying, I'm excommunicated from my friend group if I can't play the video game? So why is it so important you play video games? You don't get it. It's all about the friends and how precarious friendships are on a kind of razor's edge. I had another client who was a high school kid, and he had to stay up till 2 a.m. to chat because all the other kids were chatting, and if he didn't chat with them, then he feared he would be outside his friend group, but it was impacting his life in sleep. And so I think that's a big thing.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So what's your guidance for that kid or for that kid's parents because this is one of the things we see is kids are not sleeping, or not getting anywhere near sufficient sleep. And, as a mom, I've raised three teenagers all the way through to young adulthood. I know that they're never going to get the amount of sleep I think they should get, but what's the trade-off? How do you handle that?

George Sachs: This boy, the goal of the work was really to ask him if he actually wanted the friend group, which is a really important thing. Like, do you enjoy chatting? With ADHD, there is rejection sensitivity and the fear like I'm not going to fit in so there's a clingingness to this group. Have even asked if you like the group, and then, over time, he realized he actually didn't really like chatting with them. And so he, on his own, was able to make a decision about that. But I think, as a parent, it's important to just be aware of why the child is on the phone all the time. They're not checking out CNN. Everything is about their peer group and their status in the peer group.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And sometimes they have social connections with kids they've never met because of the technology, which, on the one hand, is kind of fascinating. And on the other hand, I think it frightens a lot of parents. They're not really his friends. He's never met them.

George Sachs: Yeah, that I've heard so many times, and that really is unfair. Now, of course, the parents sound like adults. But you need to monitor at some point what's going on there. Many of the children these days don't need to meet the person on the other end of the game to feel like they're their friend, and that's an interesting thing.

Diane Dempster: Yeah. Even in today's day and age, we're bilocating business-wise. And I can imagine there's people listening who have never seen face to face with their colleagues and they work with them all the time. We're in a very different world. And the question becomes how does the parent help make sure that kids are safe? Because I think that's what most parents are worried about, and give the kids the freedom to be who they are and to have the relationships that they want to have whether they're online or off.

George Sachs: I do think the keyword is safe and safety. Psychic safety comes from limits, so we're talking about giving children freedom, but also, they need limits. And they need to know that they're safe and their parents are keeping them safe. So it is an interesting dance a parent has to do, and where do I set limits? But I don't know. What do you think about that?

Diane Dempster: I think that there's this dance, right? And part of this is about engaging your kid to figure out what feels like realistic limits. They're going to say no limits, but if you give them a choice to say, okay, so we need to have something more than no limits. What might that look like?

George Sachs: And what would they say?

Diane Dempster: I think that's a good question. I think if they say no limits, then you back off and you say, let's pick, is it two hours a night? Is it three hours a night? What feels like a good choice?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: It is a dance. [inaudible] talks about teaching our kids to negotiate and that it's actually our job as parents to teach our kids to negotiate because if we don't, somebody else will. And you don't really want them learning it on the streets. You really want to learn to help them learn how to negotiate responsibly, fairly, confidently, etc.

George Sachs: I like that idea of just asking them, particularly older kids, what they think is appropriate. And often, their answer is the answer. Holding them accountable to their own answer, I think, is really another thing, but often, what they come back with will makes sense whether they stick with their own thing is another thing. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: We put a lot of emphasis on focusing on the process. So, hold them accountable to what they committed to, not whether or not what they committed to was right. 

George Sachs: Yeah, and that's teaching them to negotiate.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So what else? Is there anything else you'd like to share with our listeners, something you hope parents will take away from today?

George Sachs: I guess you're doing a fine job. I forget his name. Winnicott talked about being a good enough parent, this idea that I think a lot of parents feel like they're not doing enough or they're not doing enough, but they just did this. If their child just did this, they would succeed, and they feel better about themselves. And I think it starts with them fighting off the pressure from social media parenting sites and other friends who like the competition that I think parents feel. Are they feeding their child the right thing? I don't know. I read on social media. I read on Instagram. Am I doing the right thing by giving them McDonald's? It seems a constant feeling that they're underperforming. I think, from that feeling of like, I'm not doing the right thing for my child comes these behaviors, restrictions, the needs for the child to master something. And so I think it all starts with that, that the parent just feels like they're doing fine, and the kids are going to be fine. That's what I really tell parents. Most of the kids are going to be fine. Now they're eight or 12, and they're struggling, but I can see when they're 30, they're going to be fine. And that's what you have to hold in mind that when your child's 30, it's going to be okay.

Diane Dempster: And I guarantee that the parents that are listening to this podcast are absolutely the kind of parents that are doing not probably better than fine. They're probably doing great work. 

George Sachs: Yeah, I'm sure.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: What is coming up for me, as you're saying that George, is Diane and I have been working together since 2011. And early, early on, we started talking about what we want for the parents in our community, and it was always calm and confident. We want you to feel calm, and we want you to feel confident that it's okay. You got this. It's a simple but really powerful message.

George Sachs: I often think about this famous study. Basically this idea that if you raise the child in a different home, the child would turn out the same. Have you heard about these studies?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: No, but I love it.

George Sachs: Or with twins where they were separated, but they developed really similarly in totally separate homes. And I think sometimes parents feel like they can really shape and influence a child. It's nature versus nurture.

Diane Dempster: Yeah. I was going to say nature versus nurture.

George Sachs: But I think a lot about its nature, and sometimes I tell parents, your child is cooked and cooling off on the top of the stove. You don't need to do anything else like they've absorbed all the love and lessons, and they just need to be.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I love that. So that's a great segue into our last question for you, kind of a little fun wrap. Do you have a favorite quote or motto that you'd like to share?

George Sachs: In this context, I like this phrase: the good enough parent because the good enough parent is more than good enough. And if we hold on to this idea that you can be good enough, and that's excellent, then I think it takes some of the pressure off parents.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I love that very much. We teach a strategy to parents called GEMO, good enough to move on, so very much in line with our thinking. I think it's time to call this conversation a wrap. George, I want to say thank you so much for joining us and engaging in this thoughtful and really lovely conversation. Diane, anything we need to hit in terms of logistics?

Diane Dempster: No. I just want to wrap us with that whole let's let our kids be. Focus as much energy on the goals and the objectives and the mastery as we are on letting them be kids. I love that.

George Sachs: Amen. 

Diane Dempster: George, if people want to connect with you, what's the best way to make that happen?

George Sachs: Well, they can go to my website, sachscenter.com. That's sachscenter.com, or for adults with ADHD or parents with ADHD, we have this brand new mobile app called Inflow, and you can find that at getinflow.io. Or just google or search Inflow in the iPhone app store or Android app store.

Diane Dempster: Awesome.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Take care, everybody. Talk to you next time. 

Helpful Links:

-Parent Expectations: 2 Steps to Success 

-Parenting is Leadership Guide