Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Welcome back, everybody, to another conversation in the Parenting with Impact podcast. I am really excited about this conversation because today's guest is my friend, my cousin, Rosalind Wiseman, and we've been talking about doing this podcast interview for years. So I'm super excited to finally have our schedules aligned and welcome you to the show. Ros, thank you for being here.

Rosalind Wiseman: Thank you very much for having me.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So we had a little pre-conversation to talk about. What do we want to talk to you guys about? And let me start by asking the question, Ros, like, how did you get to become to do the work that you do around parenting and awareness and social development and all of that amazing work that you do in the world?

Rosalind Wiseman: Well, I started off in my twenties trying to understand social dynamics with young people and the impact that social dynamics had on their sense of self and also the decisions that they made. And it was a long time ago, so, I mean, basically, it was what we call social-emotional learning now. But I've always concurrently been on this journey to be able to figure out why the way in which adults often with the best of intentions, even with the best of intentions, when they talk to young people, how we so often speak to them in ways that actually exacerbate the problem and that kids don't wanna listen to us or feel like we're patronizing them, that we're not understanding their lives, but giving advice without context. And I've always wanted to understand why adults struggle so much in their communication with young people and then what we can do better. so that the wisdom that we do have can be communicated more effectively with young people.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah. that's just. You can see me smirking if you're watching it on YouTube, because it's like, that is so much. What we're all about is how it's. It's not what we say, it's how we say it. It's what. What's behind it? We bring such a heavy load to our conversations with our kids sometimes.

Rosalind Wiseman: I mean, absolutely. I mean, I just, what's so amazing to me is that we so often, and parents get this advice from people like me that, and Schools definitely care about this, too, that we so often create strategies that we think should motivate young people, but actually don't. And we keep doing the same thing and we say this very non-curious question, like, why does this keep happening? Or why is this kid back in my office? Or why am I doing right? And we actually don't stop and say, wait a minute, what is the question here? like, I need to actually ask the question, why do I continue doing things that don't work?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah, it is amazing. Like, we keep hitting our heads against the wall and expecting a different outcome, so. And I'm struck by when you first started doing this work, it was pre-Internet, wasn't it?

Rosalind Wiseman: It was. And so we had AOL, like, aim kind of instant messaging kind of stuff before all of that.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right. And so I'm curious what you've noticed. You know, the time immemorial issue of parents and kids talking, parents talking at their kids. That's not a new issue. Curious if you noticed how it changed with the advent of technology and the Internet.

Rosalind Wiseman: Yeah, there's all, there's so much right now because of Jonathan Haidt's book, the Anxious Generation. There is so much about controlling young people's social media and also specifically controlling their phones. Next year, Schools some of them have already done it, but there's gonna be run, I'm sure there already is, actually, on getting the pouches, where you put the phones in the pouches so that kids can have less cell phone usage during the day. And you know, technology has always been a complexity for young people, and it has definitely ramped up all of the things that we are dealing with young people and their mental health. But mental health, young people's mental health, their ability to facilitate and manage school is a very complex animal. And it is so important to understand, for example, when we are talking to young people about technology, that we do so in a way that really respects their experience about it because right now, we're actually in a place where we are trying. There's been a huge push to control young people and to control so much about their lives, including privacy, including the decisions that they make about a lot of different things. And so there's a huge effort right now to just really dominate young people's lives. And that's coming from Schools, it's coming from all different kinds of places. And young people, as you know, have it's part of their development to be able to create their own individual selves and we're really through our own anxiety and it's certainly understandable. Anxiety is having a really hard time being able to manage ourselves when we are talking to young people about technology. And, honestly, for your, like, if I what, we struggle so much, with technology to create programs or any kind of education that actually young people take seriously. And that's, I'm afraid that we are doing that yet again.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Well, I mean, what you're saying about our desire for control, and again, this is not new that parents want control. It's just this new frontier. It's bigger, it's broader, it's scarier. And so there's, and there is a need to create a safety zone. Right? with some capacity for our kids, but there's a difference between controlling an environment and controlling them.

Rosalind Wiseman: Yeah. I don't know. Yes. Although I'm not sure if young people in some ways make the difference, but also the way in which we parented has dramatically changed since the 1970s. So, I mean, some of these issues are evergreen, like we want, most of us want the best for our children. Children get, it's evergreen for children to get annoyed with us, for us to get frustrated with our kids all, for our children to have experiences of breaking up with friendships or having somebody betray them or fall in love maybe and get heartbroken. It's evergreen for children to lie to their parents or to sneak around. That's also something that we've been dealing with forever. But the way in which we have parented in the United States has dramatically changed since the seventies and eighties. And actually, what's really interesting about that is that in the seventies and eighties, there was much more violence in our culture, much more, and ostensibly for young people, like their actual experience is less violent. But when we get to their feelings, for example, and I would never disagree with children about their feelings or anybody, but the feeling that young people have, for example, about school shootings and the propensity or possibility of it coming into their School, that's their feeling. And it's the anxiety that they are bringing to School. And so you can't argue that feeling of anxiety. That's a real feeling. And so the world in which we are living is so incredibly different based on literally the perceptions that we have. And one of the results has been that parents are much more controlling and want much more information about their children at all times.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So, two different directions to go, and I want to talk about parents over engagement. Maybe before we go there, let's go back to, because you're saying that the world is dramatically less violent than it was in the 1970s. And I know there's a lot of, but I know the parents are gonna, are going to hear, well, but what about fortnight or what about the School shootings? That wasn't something that we were worried about with kids in the seventies.

Rosalind Wiseman: Sure.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: In what ways is. Are you referencing that?

Rosalind Wiseman: So when, if you look at, there's an, I forgot the name of the book. It just popped out of my head. But when we were growing up in the seventies and day, eighties we had a lot more freedom to our movement, right? Our parents would have a long time without knowing where we were because we were in the neighborhood, right? We were somewhere in the neighborhood. We were playing whatever. At the same time, violent crime and actual, like violent crime was way higher at that time. And yet our parents had no, like, most of our parents didn't even think about the fact that we were, like, out and about and they didn't know where we were. So it's a, as we have, as generations have, as we've gotten, through the decades of the nineties, two thousand. And now that the amount of control and feeling that parents need to know everything about their children, that's the first thing. The second thing is that they need to solve any problem that their child has and also that they can't ask for help. One of the things that's so important about what you do is that in this desire in the last couple of years, and it was connected to politics about parents are the ones that know best about their kid, right? They are the ones, the only ones who will know the best for their child. I'm not sure if that's true because as a parent myself, sometimes our love makes us so anxious that we cannot see straight and we can't be the person that our child needs us to be. And we have to depend on people who have seen children and all, who keep seeing all different kinds of kids and can see, like, how your child fits into the spectrum of things or be able to say to you, this thing that we're seeing right now, that's, it's a concern, but it's a concern that I've seen before. It's a pattern. Let me explain to you how to get help, all of those things. But as a parent, because you don't have a lot of experience in the whole gamut of children and adolescent development. And childhood development, it's really easy to look at your child, understandably so, and say this is the most horrible thing that's ever happened. We, and the thing I'm so worried about, and I have so much empathy for parents about this, that in this thing of saying, well, parents know their children best, there's also this really dark side of that, which is so if you don't, then there's something wrong with you. And this, it makes, it is such an impossible bar for a parent to meet that they know their child the best. Know what is the best help. That is the help that's gonna work. And also this feeling of if you need to go get help, then there's something wrong with you. And that is just so far from the truth. I've had many moments as a parent when it was very clear to me that my love was created and my love and focus on my child stopped me from being able to help them in a way that was helpful to them. It was imperative that I find people who were experts in the field to be and also love them, like them, know them, but were not their parents and could be able to help them in a way that could really, that they could listen in a different way than they would ever be able to listen to me.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So there. So, you're speaking to two things. One piece is that it's imperative to have other adults in your kid's lives whom you can trust. And then the other thing I hear you saying, and this is the reason I got in to do this work, is because I was doing everything the experts were telling me to do. And with my complex kids, it wasn't working. And so then I was beginning to feel like a terrible parent and completely because I was doing what they said to do, and it wasn't the right thing for the kids that I had. And so learning how to be in conversation with yourself as a parent, to have some resources to help you talk through, what are the decisions I want to make? How do I want to be with this? That's what I hear you speaking to when it means when we talk about asking for help, it's not abdicating, it's giving yourself a structure or a way to really think through how I want to parent around whatever this issue is. Right?

Rosalind Wiseman: Yeah. I mean, yeah. My children had said to me when they were, especially when they were teenagers, that just my presence was intolerable to them. And when you think about it, it's really because of the intensity of the relationship, especially if your child struggles with social skills, and social skills are hard to have, no matter what, in the process of adolescent development. Child development and adolescent development is how to do these things which are really hard, like how to join a group when you're new to the group, how to recognize when maybe you've done something that's not great. So you need to apologize and also sort of smooth things over or how do you take responsibility for yourself when you've made a mistake? Or how do you advocate for yourself when somebody is running all over you? Because we often, for kids all over, we learn that we need to maintain relationships no matter how we are treated in those relationships. So childhood and adolescent development is all about how we navigate groups, and that is gonna be super bumpy at the best of circumstances. If you struggle with it, if you have a hard time understanding cues that people give, you're moving so fast that you just don't understand what's going on or maybe it's so important to you to say something funny to the rest of your kid, the kids in the class. And so you say something funny, but the teacher is there or it's inappropriate or you don't recognize or pay attention to the fact that there's a class going on and then you get in trouble. And if this is the fifth time this has happened and everybody's really frustrated with you, including your parents, we need to have people who really understand, like, why, what is the motivation for that child to do that? And also how do we move it so that, and show this child, like, what's a different kind of way to be that also meets the needs that they have, which are incredibly important.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah. So we're gonna take a quick break and then we're gonna come right back. Welcome back, everybody. My guest is Rosalind Wiseman. And we are talking, we're talking about the world as it is with teens, with kids, with parents, and that delicious, complex dynamic between. And what I really, just to encapsulate what I just heard before, we kind of move us in a slightly different direction is that it's really important, particularly for those of us with complex kids who struggle with, who may be struggling with social skill, social dynamics is to make sure that we meet them where they are, that we take the time to. This is so what you don't know yet, Ros, is this is the model you've just walked them through, our model. Right? Take aim on what the issue is. Get curious about really what's going on. Understand the underlying motivation. Under the motivation, meet them where they are. Do it from a place that respects their agency, their autonomy. Understand. Start by acknowledging that their experience is happening because they're experiencing something. Right? Meet them first before you try to change them, fix them, advise them, whatever. Then with teens, before you start trying to address it, you ask permission to engage with them and connect with them. So then let's shift to. And there's a role for us as parents, and you kind of alluded to this a little while ago. Yes, there's a role for understanding how we be in conversation with our teens when they're dealing with a lot of these complex issues and you've done a huge amount of work, put a bunch of stuff in there, a bunch of resources in the show notes for people to read more about that. Let's talk a little bit about parent anxiety and the role that it's playing in this dynamic, because a lot of the work we find we're doing, when you talk about parents asking for help, it's helping people see what they're bringing to the dynamic. And we often talk about it in terms of getting ourselves out of the way. We ask the question, whose agenda is it? Is it your agenda or your kid's agenda? And we're really talking mostly about teens here, especially, I think, in this conversation. But let's talk a little bit about that. What's happening in that parent dynamic?

Rosalind Wiseman: Yeah. Well, I mean, I really look at being able to check two things, catastrophizing the problem and having a self-righteous temper tantrum. Those are the two problems. Like, if you can put them in buckets, it's those two things. And catastrophizing is this, obviously is this feeling that this one thing is always gonna be in your child's life, right? Whatever it is, and that it's gonna forever gonna pull your child down into being a failure, whatever. And then I would ask yourself, well, how are you defining failure? And, of course, how do you define success? Because we know, I think parents are very good at lying to ourselves because we say, like, if I asked a parent, okay, well, how do you define success? Right? Your child is successful. They know what to say to convince themselves that what they're saying is the truth, which is I want my child to be happy. I want them to have good friends. I want them to, those kinds of things, to be able to.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Take care of themselves, hold down a job.

Rosalind Wiseman: Exactly right. So then I want them to have a job that they're curious about, that they think it's a purpose, they can give back to the society, things like that. The question I would really ask parents is, and I ask myself this, too, as a parent, is, are my actions matching what I say? And also, am I walking the talk? Also, am I a reliable narrator to answer that question, because we basically have to do something that can be really uncomfortable and is vulnerable and just take it under advisement is ask your kids.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: That's right.

Rosalind Wiseman: And they will tell you, well, they're gonna tell you and the first, like, minute or so. When we ask questions like this to our children, sometimes they can't help but just have, like, this obnoxious kind of burst of, just saying something snarky. And because they just can't, they just can't help themselves. And it's not rude and they haven't been raised poorly or anything like that. They just can't help themselves. It's like, it's just the can't. So let that. Just let it go. Let that happen. And then say, no, actually, really, I really would like to know. Like, I really want to know if my actions match my words. And then the vast majority of young people will tell you, like, when you say to them, no, I really want to know. If my actions match my words with you as a parent, then that conversation can get really serious real fast, and they will actually be deep into the conversation. And so I would ask them. I would ask them, like, what? You know, I think I have a tendency to catastrophize things around this area in my life. What does that look like to you? And what would you rather me do instead? Or, and also you can also ask the question of when I do things like that, what is your most, what is your usual common reaction to that? My experience, just as one example, is that when parents find out about a social problem or some kind of aggression that's happened with their child and another person, they get so upset and so angry that they ask a million questions and then they're interrogating the kid, the child shuts down and, or the child lies. And the other part is that the catastrophizing of, like, well, what, you can't be punished in this situation or that other child needs to be punished to the extent that I think is appropriate, like, not what anybody else thinks is appropriate, and then the child stops talking to you as a result. And that's the thing I think a lot of parents don't realize, is that when you catastrophize and get micromanaging and, like, super involved in your child's life, there are two things that happen. One is your child stops talking to you because you're freaking them out and you're taking away autonomy from them so they don't want to tell you anything. Or second is they do the opposite. They do the other extreme, which is that they then rely on you to get involved and take over. And that means that they don't have the chance to be able to develop the social competency that they desperately need to have as adults, as growing adults.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So you're holding the agenda. They don't have to. And a lot of our kids, especially with complex needs, will let you hold the agenda so they don't have to. The other piece that you're speaking to that we talk a lot about is that what happens, particularly with complex kids, is this what I would call falling out of trust. We've fallen in trust with them. They've fallen out of trust with us. And so you're talking about an opportunity for a really deep trust-building conversation. But they're gonna be watching your reaction to decide whether they're gonna continue to trust you in this conversation. And if you shut it down, if you say, yeah, but if you get defensive, then the door is gonna close.

Rosalind Wiseman: Yeah. And I think the blessing with our children, though, is that we can be defensive and we can say things that are really not helpful. And then my experience with this is that if you go back to, and I've done this with young people that I've worked with a lot and my own children, but, I mean, I've certainly done this with kids that I work with, too, is that I make mistakes. And being able, I've been sarcastic. I've been snarky. I didn't follow through on some things that I should have. I catastrophized something. I took something personally. Right? Just to name sort of the listening and to be able to go back to a student or to this young person in your life and say, okay, really thought about what happened yesterday, for example, and I did not show up as the person that I wanted to with you. And, like when I said, I was wrong. I'm really sorry. Now, the thing that I think that parents get really caught up in is that they think they have to have this really long conversation about that. Or the child is like the only way to define success in that conversation is the child saying, My God, thank you so much for telling me that. And, they could literally, I've had students who look at me and go, yeah, I have no idea what you're talking about.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right.

Rosalind Wiseman: And because they don't want to admit it at that moment and maybe they forgot about it but really, actually is that they, for the most part, like the majority of the time, they do know exactly what I'm talking about, but they don't want to talk about it because it's too weird to talk about it with an adult like that. And so they say, like, I don't know what you're talking about and it doesn't mean that what you've done doesn't matter. It is you as an adult in your position of respect is you are expressing generous authority, which is you are expressing your power for your authority for the benefit of others. And I think that really can build back trust when you have these moments of falling out of trust.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah, I love it. And I'm gonna put some links in the show notes to some of the things that we teach that reinforce that are skills for doing exactly what you're doing. Clean these late conversations and breadcrumbs and that kind of thing. Before we wrap, I want to, you mentioned catastrophizing, which we talk about a lot in our community. And you mentioned self-righteous temper tantrums, which you probably don't call out quite as clearly in our community, but I love it. So I want to hear more.

Rosalind Wiseman: What are those?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I think I know what it is.

Rosalind Wiseman: Yeah, it's super easy to recognize anytime time you have in your mind, like, I'm going down to that school, or I'm gonna go down to that teacher, I'm gonna send that email, I'm gonna send that text, I'm gonna what? Any time you have that tone in your body, in your mind, you are having a self-righteous temper tantrum.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I'm gonna school them, I'm gonna teach them, I'm gonna show them.

Rosalind Wiseman: I'm gonna show right, and so moment. And you can be like in a temper tantrum, you actually, you can be in it and realize like, some part of your brain is going, like knocking, like, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. And children really do not talk to parents who have self-righteous temper tantrums because it's embarrassing, it's humiliating, and it's really, it is like taking away their sense of self. And again, like, it's so counter to the parenting culture that we're in, which is like, you've got to advocate for your child so you can be mid-tantrum and say, My gosh, hold on 1 second, I have lost myself here. I need a moment. Just give me a moment. I'm really sorry about what I just did. Let me just have a moment. Let me try again. And then just close your eyes and be like, Okay. Understandable feelings, not good. So, like, just, and just open your eyes and say, I'm really sorry. This is really important to me. Let me have a redo. May I have a redo? And like, the vast majority of people, especially educators, will be so grateful, that you have done this because they, unfortunately, truly, I think educators often feel that they're either therapists or punching bags for parents all day long and they never know what they're gonna get, right? They never know what they're gonna get. Like, it can change in any second. And so if you're the parent who even in mid-tantrum says, I need to stop right now, honestly, like, you will have made this teacher's day and they can hear you, way better and they can collaborate with you way better because it's really hard to collaborate with somebody who is screaming at you or challenging your integrity or your confidence.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I was really judging you in any way, right? Fundamentally, that's what's happening. I love that we do a ton of work in our community to help parents stop yelling and dealing with being triggered, whether they're at home or at school, whatever environment because it happens in our community. So with your permission, I'm gonna borrow self-righteous temper tantrums.

Rosalind Wiseman: Yeah, of course. It's so hard not to. I mean, it's so hard not to yell.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah, it is. And it's counterproductive to everything you're trying to achieve. And so that's the take the beat. Take care of yourself, all those of you in our community, all the stuff we teach about taking care, self-care, slow yourself down, take the beat. What do you need to do to reclaim your brain? What we're talking about here is reclaiming the brain.

Rosalind Wiseman: Yes, exactly.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Thank you for that. Okay, how can people find out more about you? Because we have to wrap this conversation as much as I hate.

Rosalind Wiseman: It's easy. It's just my name. It's rosalindwiseman.com or you can put mean girls into any search engine and my name will pop up, too. So it's super easy to find me.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Awesome. And it will be in the show notes. And there are lots of interesting resources and great, great information there. So thank you. Before we wrap the conversation completely, I have two final questions for you. One is, is there anything that we didn't talk about that you want to make sure we talk about? Or is there something we did talk about that you want to kind of highlight before we wrap today?

Rosalind Wiseman: I think that there's a really important thing we need as parents to say to each other because parents talk about children all the time and not in very positive ways sometimes. And educators do this, too. And so when we, in whatever your role, when you come online or in real life and you find a group of people that are talking badly about a child, that you don't stay silent, you say, what can we do to help this child? Or what can we do to support this family or this child? This seems like a really hard thing they're going through. And I really would like people to do that because that would fundamentally change the way that a lot of our schools and communities run. Right? Instead of gossiping and thinking the worst of each other and then letting those stories just out into the air without stopping is that we actually take responsibility and say, what can we do to support this child? What can we do to support this family?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Beautiful. So really what I hear you saying is not to be a bystander.

Rosalind Wiseman: Yeah. Bystander is not a word I use with young people because they don't like it. But, Yeah.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: But you're talking to adults here.

Rosalind Wiseman: I'm talking about adults. Yes.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah. And there's that tendency that we have to, we talk about if we, one of the frameworks we teach parents is, is it naughty or neurological? If it's naughty, you're gonna treat one way. If it's neurological, you're gonna respond by saying not how can he speak to me rudely that way? But, wow, he's having a hard time being respectful right now. How can I support that?

Rosalind Wiseman: Yeah.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And so that's what I hear you bringing is this framework of how can I support, what can we do differently to support these kids?

Rosalind Wiseman: Yeah, exactly.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Thank you. So before we close, do you have a favorite quote or motto that you want to share?

Rosalind Wiseman: Yeah, I mean, my favorite quote that I live by is dignity is not negotiable. I really, my whole work, the foundation of my work is based on understanding the difference between respect and dignity. And that respect is often a word that is misused, especially with young people. And it really denotes power and power differences instead of you have to show respect to people that you don't because that person in a position of respect is taking away the dignity, the inherent worth of someone else. And so for me, I very much feel, because I work in education. Education is a, I work in all different kinds of ways with people in positions of authority. And I think that dignity is a base level that just, you don't go, you don't go below that. You always treat people with a sense of worth, but that respect can be earned and lost. And I think those two things, and we usually combine those two words and think of them as the same thing and they're really not. And so for me, dignity is not negotiable. Is absolutely, part of my foundation.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Beautiful. I love that. And it's a beautiful way to frame it that respect can be earned and lost as trust can, but dignity is non-negotiable. Beautiful.

Rosalind Wiseman: Yeah.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Ros, thank you. Thanks for all that you've done for your world, for all of us in the world that you've lived for. Whatever you're gonna do as you move forward in it, thank you for the work you do in the world.

Rosalind Wiseman: You are so welcome. Thanks for having me.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Thanks for being here. To those of you who are listening, take a moment and check in with yourself. What are you taking away from this conversation? What are some of the nuggets you pulled? What's a clear insight to you from this conversation? What's your Aha that you may want to take forward with you into your week? This week. And as always, thank you for what you're doing for yourself, and for your kids. Thinking about it, have a conscious conversation with yourself about how you want to be as a parent or a professional. At the end of the day, you make an extraordinary difference. Talk to you on the next one. Y'all.