Speaker 1: 0:38

Welcome back to Speak Out. Stand Out. I'm Elizabeth Green and today's guest is Todd Sarner. Todd is a licensed family therapist who's helped thousands of families move from daily stress and disconnection to calm, confident leadership at home, and we're really excited to have Todd on here to chat today about how we can be calm, confident leaders in our own home. So, Todd, thanks for being here.

Speaker 2: 1:00

I'm really glad to be here. I've listened to many of your shows and I really like what you're doing Lots of different, varying topics, and just it's interesting. So I'm glad to be here. I'm excited to talk to you.

Speaker 1: 1:14

Thank you very much, and we're excited to hear from you because you know what we do here at Speak Out Stand Out is we try to give parents of tweens and teens strategies to build confidence and communication skills in their kids. That was the goal when I started this podcast, and what I have learned over the many episodes that we've done is that a lot of that starts with building confidence and communication skills in ourselves, right In order to teach our children. So I think today we're going to be talking a little bit more about being a calm, confident leader in our homes, so that we can teach our children how to be. So tell me how you got to this point in life. How did this become your focus, where you saw there's an issue and I have a solution to share with people? How'd that come about?

Speaker 2: 1:59

You know, I studied and went to grad school for psychology with the idea that I wanted to help kids and that I went to a therapist when I was young, when my parents split for a little bit, and I just loved it. I thought it was great when I was 13. And so I went through it because I just thought I want to be that guy, I want to be that person who's there for teenagers or kids and when they're having a hard time. And there was a combination of becoming mentored by Gordon Neufeld, who wrote the book Hold On To your Kids why Parents Need To Matter More Than Peers. He kind of took me on as a trainee when he first decided to move into training and at the same time I was becoming a father myself and I just kind of switched my attitude that, look, I don't want to be the answer for other people's kids. I like the idea in general.

Speaker 2: 3:02

I and I went on to work in group homes with teenagers and foster and adoptive programs and I still do some volunteer stuff with different organizations that help teens and kids. But I just went wait, it's the parent If it, if it's possible, the parent should be the answer for the child. I want to be the guy in the background helping them, you know, helping them be who their kid needs them to be, and it just seemed like a more natural thing to me and part of it was just being a dad myself. I'm like I don't want my kid to have to go elsewhere outside of me and please hear me Like, like, sometimes that's helpful.

Speaker 1: 3:47

But in general.

Speaker 2: 3:48

I think parents are supposed to be the answer for their kids and maybe it'll come up later, but, like, for instance, right now, I'm hearing a lot of parents saying their teenagers are going to AI and asking for advice from AI and things, and I think AI can be a useful tool, but I just think that parents are supposed to be the answer for their kids, and so everything I do is organized around either, on the one hand, parent coaching, doing a program with people for a few months where I just kind of give them a rapid education in child development and behavior and how, most importantly and I think it speaks to what you do how we can help them develop the maturity processes inside that they need to be confident to have good relationships, to have skills, because that really, from an attachment point of view, comes from a secure base.

Speaker 2: 4:42

I know that's very loaded, I'm saying a lot of things, but then, on the other hand, um, I do marriage counseling only for parents because I figure, like you said, modeling things ourself is the number one thing that we can do sometimes, and modeling good boundaries and good skills and good working through of problems in our adult relationships is something that kids deeply learn from. So that's, that's how I got to where I am now. That's what I do and I and I love it. So did I? Did that lead to 20 questions, or?

Speaker 1: 5:24

No, I just wanted to go back to what you said to start. Kudos to your parents for putting you in therapy, because you know that was not a very common thing when we were growing up.

Speaker 2: 5:34

You know, at least you know and, to be honest, they cooperated with that, of course, but it was more a family court judge going. These people are having a messy divorce. These kids should all be going to talk to somebody to make sure they're OK. So, yes, my mom drove me and she was supportive of it, and I remember the counselor even coming over to have dinner with us once, which you can't really do anymore, which you can't really do anymore, but but yeah, they were supportive, but it really was because they were not handling their divorce very well, but I'm glad they did support it.

Speaker 2: 6:10

And you're right, it wasn't a common thing. But nowadays I almost find like it's the opposite sometimes. Like my practice started in Marin County, california, which is right above San Francisco. It's a very affluent suburb. A lot of tech founders and things work in San Francisco, but they live in Marin and I found it was getting almost too common that they would just turn their kids over to therapy when anything wasn't going right.

Speaker 2: 6:47

And that doesn't mean it's true everywhere, but it was almost like, okay, the kid's acting up, fix them. And I was like, no, I think the kid's actually just showing like a canary in a coal mine. The kid's just showing some symptoms of things that aren't quite going right in the family system.

Speaker 1: 7:00

Yeah, yeah, well, and it was a transformative experience for you. So that's. I hate that you had to go through all of that as a child, but a transformative experience and now you're making a difference with your experience, so that's great.

Speaker 1: 7:12

So one of the core things I want to talk about today is, um, depending on when you're listening to this, it's. It's timely right now and, unfortunately, we'll probably still be very timely if you're listening to this month down the road. Our kids are growing up in a world that we did not right. I graduated college when social media was really just becoming a thing. There were no cell phones I mean, we had flip phones. No video cameras, no, nothing like that. And so our kids are growing up where they are exposed to so much, so quick and so young, and a lot of what they're exposed to is not positive and not even like.

Speaker 1: 7:54

I mean going to the extremes of some of the things, like, in the past couple of weeks, videos that have been circulating of some terrible, horrendous murders that we as human beings, we're not built to visually, you know to see, and here we've got 12 year old kids and even younger seeing these videos. So as parents, we can put all the blocks on the phones. We cannot give them phones, but we can't keep them in a bubble, so we have to. I think, as a parent, even think we have to be aware that, even if my kid doesn't have access to this. One of his friends does. So we have to go into it, I think, aware that they're seeing things that they are not prepared to see and the overwhelm and the emotions that that would stir up, you know, in a kid. As parents, how do we begin to deal with that? And that's a huge loaded question, I know, but where?

Speaker 2: 8:42

do we start? Where do we begin to deal with that?

Speaker 1: 8:43

And that's a huge loaded question, I know, but where do we start? Where?

Speaker 2: 8:45

do we start? Yeah, it is really, really a big question and we could spend hours on it, so I try to break it down. Like you know, people come to me with a lot of issues and a lot of big things every day, and it's been a couple of decades that, you know, I've been doing the coaching and everything every day, and it's been a couple of decades that I've been doing the coaching and everything, and so for me it just makes sense to break it down into pieces, make it manageable to think about. I think a couple of concepts that I would organize it around are that most of parenting is not supposed to be reactive. Most of parenting is supposed to be proactive, not supposed to be reactive. Most of parenting is supposed to be proactive and developing a strong relationship with your child and never taking that for granted. Creating an environment around your child in which you're not trying to keep them in a bubble, but you are building out a culture around them. You're building out a village around them of supportive people who are like-minded and of teachers that you trust and friend groups that you have good communication with, and then trying to tend to most problems proactively, rather than getting caught in these cycles of my kid does this, so I do that, and my kid does this, and I do this, and this week I'm being a gentle parent and next week I'm being a you know, reactive F around and find out parent. And I don't know, I didn't even know about that until recently, depending on when people are listening to that I am not on the TikTok and stuff, but you know, I just started getting inundated, including from reporters calling me what do you think about this F around and find out parenting? And it's like people are swinging back and forth on this pendulum and I've been doing it 25 years, where's gentle? And then it doesn't work because they're not doing any boundaries and so then everybody goes overboard with boundaries and then they go back and forth.

Speaker 2: 10:50

I would say, trying to stay focused on your question, make relationship between you and your child a priority. Focus on building a good culture around them, and we can get into more details about that. I'm just trying to do the highest level right now, yeah, and then focus on their maturity processes. Yeah, and that's what I was thinking about a lot when I thought about coming on with you today after listening to some of your episodes. Too often we just say a kid is mature or not mature, and that's not usually helpful and it's often really false. I hear people saying about six-year-olds he's very mature. And I'm not trying to be a jerk, I'm just like no, he's not. By definition, he's six. He's very mature. And I'm not trying to be a jerk, I'm just like no, he's not.

Speaker 1: 11:38

By definition.

Speaker 2: 11:38

He's six. He's not mature. If he was mature, he could go get a job. What I learned about maturity processes and I'll just say it quickly is I want to see a child who can weigh things out and I'm trying to speak directly to some of your examples Like, when they're five years old, they can't weigh anything out.

Speaker 2: 11:57

They don't even have the part of their brain that can weigh things out. So if they see something, they'll focus on something about it, they'll get fixated with it, they'll get locked into it and the devil on the shoulder going like hey, on the one hand, this, on the other hand, that that's a maturity. You don't see that a lot in our public dialogue right now. You don't see it in the political discourse right now. Everybody's like I'm all the way, this or I'm all the way that Real morality and ethics come from a person being able to, on the one hand, this, on the other hand, this, but this is the right thing, but you do that from weighing it. Does that make sense, elizabeth? Yeah, absolutely. Kids don't even have the ability to do that until five, six, seven. If you want to say where I focus as a parent, I focus on these three maturities. Is my kid able to do that yet? And if they're not able to weigh things out, I want to help them to learn that so when they see things that are happening, they can do that and like things, like everybody says, like courage. Courage isn't the absence of fear. Courage is. Part of me feels fear, but another part of me wants to accomplish the good thing more that it outweighs it. That's integrative. I want to see a kid who's integrative. I want to see a kid who's emergent. That's the second energy. Kids are usually born with this. We see them. You get them an expensive toy but they play with the box for two hours because they just imagine it's a spaceship, you know. And they have great games and they're colorful in what they do and they're expressive and they have a good relationship with themselves and they don't get bored. Sometimes because of the way we parent them, sometimes because of things in culture, we kind of push that out of them and I want to see a kid who still has that. The poet Yates said education is meant to be the lighting of a fire, not the filling of a bucket. That fire, I want to see that in a kid.

Speaker 2: 14:10

By the time I took my kid to see his first movie when he was 12, and that's not me saying you can't go to a movie before 12. We just didn't do it, we just didn't think of it, we forgot about it. We weren't doing a lot of media. And then by the time I was like, oh, we were waiting for that perfect movie. Let's just go see a movie he had such an imagination about it was the book BFG. Oh yeah, imagination about it was the book uh, bfg, um, oh yeah, big friendly giant by roald dahl. He had been, he had heard that story so many times that he was able to see the movie and go. I like what steven spielberg did with this part of it, but I like the way I thought of it better. You know, yeah, I want to see a kid who can think for themselves, who has, has that fire.

Speaker 2: 14:55

And then the third thing, which is kind of the most difficult sometimes, is adaptive energy. Life is frustrating. Difficult things happen. We can't hold on to things. Sometimes we can't be something we want to be. Sometimes Things change, people pass away. Adaptive energy is I can feel all that frustration inside and I can feel it and I can process it and I can cry and get it out and then I feel better because I did that.

Speaker 2: 15:25

Does that make sense? That's one of the main things I've been concerned about for a while, with kids especially. A lot of my clientele are doing well in life. They're a founder of a company or they're you know, um, um, not everybody, but it just so happened because of where I was living, that's a lot of clients I have. A lot of their kids had never been told. No, a lot of their kids, um, got everything they wanted, and that comes from a great motive, right, we're, our parents, got everything they wanted, and that comes from a great motive, right, we're parents. We want our kids to be happy.

Speaker 2: 15:59

But my mentor, dr Neufeld, really drilled into me and helped me understand that happiness is usually what happens when you're able to process what comes up in life and you're able to mourn it and let it go, and then you can feel happy. Does that make sense too? Yeah, yeah. So I know this is a long way around to your question and there'll be, you know, follow-ups from it, but that's what I tell parents to focus on If you focus on having a strong relationship with your kid, if you focus on building a good culture around them of supportive, good people, and you focus on helping them develop these processes. When, inevitably, bad things happen in life, they might be sad and they might be affected by it, but they know what to do with it. They can process it and that's what I tell parents to focus on. And a lot of times I'm not this anti-technology guy. I grew up in Silicon Valley in the 70s and 80s when a lot of this stuff was happening. My neighbors were programmers for Apple Computer and Atari.

Speaker 2: 17:11

Nobody knows what Atari is anymore, and I was on a documentary about kids in America being into computers when I was like 12 or something. I wasn't that good. It just so happens that my neighbor was a PR person for a computer company social media. We didn't have all this stuff, and it just has the potential to get in the way of these maturity processes that I'm talking about. Yes, okay, because if a kid is on their phone all day and doing social media and stuff, they might not be feeling their feelings, they might not be being creative because they're looking at other people being creative I'm pointing at my phone, but they're looking at other people being creative, but they're not usually necessarily spending that time being creative. They're not experiencing the frustration that happens and the processing that happens when I work things out with a friend, or when I experience frustration because I was building something and it fell apart, or you know what I mean. They're hitting reset if something doesn't work, and so I just ask parents to be mindful of like, if your kid doesn't have all these processes yet, be mindful of how technology, ai and being on screens and hearing about awful things happening in the world might be affecting them. I know we just at the time we're recording this.

Speaker 2: 18:45

We just had the anniversary of 9-11. And I lost a dear friend that day and I didn't tell my son about that for the first 10 or 12 years of his life because I'm like what am I going to tell him about that? That is awful. What happened that day and how do you process that when you're eight years old? I don't need to give him that yet. I wasn't trying to keep him in a bubble forever, but I wasn't going to tell him that yet unless he heard about it.

Speaker 2: 19:15

Right, and then by the time he actually was aware of it, we could talk about it. He could understand it a little better. But I also remember when a really bad school shooting happened. I forget which one it was. I want to say, um, the one in Florida, uh, marjorie, I forget the name of the school, but it was on all the papers. I kind of went to him as a 13, 14 year old, I think he was at the time and I said, hey, I know you're hearing about this. He didn't. They didn't even have smartphones at their school, but I knew he was hearing about it. He didn't, they didn't even have smartphones at their school, but I knew he was hearing about it and I said like, how does this like land with you? What do you think about this?

Speaker 2: 20:06

And he said I guess when you and mom were little it didn't happen that much. This was a kid who didn't have a smartphone, but he had already been hearing about it. But he did know how to talk about it, he did know how to share about it and we could have good conversations. So I gave you a really long answer but I tried to do the big picture and then, if you have kind of you know specific follow-ups, we can talk about that. If you have kind of you know specific follow-ups, we can talk about that.

Speaker 1: 20:32

Yeah, no, that was. That was fantastic. You so many, dropped so many gems in that. But I guess to the, the latest point about you know, you said he could talk about it with you, he could have conversations about it with you. I, I, what do you? I feel like sometimes, as parents, we don't value our kids, opinions and their thoughts as much as we value adults. I think sometimes we get into the and I'm saying I think sometimes I do this, that I'm talking about myself I get into the rut of parenting. Did you brush your teeth? Did you do your homework? Why are your grades low? Those types of things instead of, like you said before, building the relationship with them. I think those are two different things. Right, like we can, we can parent without relationships, and that's, that's something that it's. I think it's easy to get sucked into in the busy day to day.

Speaker 2: 21:21

Totally, and that's real. You know, a lot of times I call my approach attachment first. You know there's a lot of understanding, misunderstanding about attachment, science and things out there. To me, attachment first just means put the relationship first. If you're traveling a lot of places in the world and France is kind of famous for this if you don't take a moment when you walk into the store and say bonjour, comment ça va? And pardon my bad French accent from high school, they will be mad at you. Because their attitude is their idea of culture is we don't just rush into things, we don't just presume relationship.

Speaker 2: 22:07

Part of how we stay kind and have a civilized society is we always stop and say hi, how are you? And look at each other in the eyes. And if you don't do that, you're being a barbarian, right. And so you start with attachment and you do have rules and you have expectations and you have a rhythm. That's part of what I meant about building a culture around them. Have predictability. Have you know expectations? As far as consequences, consequences don't have to be punishment. It's like you don't eat dinner, you don't get dessert, you yell in the car, I pull over. I don't have to yell at you, I just pull over for 20 minutes and guess what that comes out of the time you wanted later for this. That's not a punishment, that's just a matter of fact because I had to pull over, but a lot of what first came up for me and what you said, elizabeth, about value. I think valuing their opinions or what they're doing, opinions or what they're doing. You said something is I find myself saying all day long, especially in couples counseling empathy does not mean you agree, and it's just such a simple way of saying it.

Speaker 2: 23:24

I don't know if I made it up or if I was inspired by somebody else saying something like that. But to empathize with your wife, to empathize with your husband, but to empathize with your wife, to empathize with your husband, to empathize with your child, doesn't mean you have to totally agree with their opinion or their experience. Your teenager will come at you with things that seem completely ridiculous to you. You might be forgetting in the moment that you cared about the same things when you were a teenager. But what people really need? If I had two or three top things to say to people like Todd, you have one day left on earth.

Speaker 2: 24:03

What did you learn by talking to thousands of people you know as a couples counselor and as a coach for parents, I'd say people need empathy. They want to know that you care about their experience and that you're at least striving to understand where they're coming from. So if you could spend just a little bit of your time as a parent of a school age child or a tween or a teen, and just go, what is their life like right now? What was it like to have freaking hormones just pouring through your body all the time as a teenage boy or a teenage girl? What's it like to go to school and everybody is being judgy? I was just thinking. The other day we saw something with Tina Fey, a TV show with Tina Fey, and she did that movie Mean Girls. Did you ever see that?

Speaker 1: 25:01

Oh yeah, I didn't remember her being in it, but I remember that movie Well she wrote it.

Speaker 2: 25:06

I don't remember if she was in it right now, but she wrote it. And she wrote it because she read a book called Queen Bees and Wannabes, which is a sociology book about how teenage girls treat each other. I read that book just like as a counselor, being curious about that. I went to every woman in my life like is that how teenage girls are treating each other? And every single woman in my life was like, yeah, dude, and I'm like. I thought they were just pretty and nice and smart and they were being nice and they were the nice ones and we were the ones being little jerks.

Speaker 2: 25:44

And when we were teenagers right me, I think of one of my best friends and his brother would just sit there and punch each other in the shoulder in the hallway in high school, you know, and let's listen to our music. And they're like yeah, and try to take some time, at least a little time maybe, before your child comes home from school. Take five minutes and go. God, what was her experience today? What did she? What is she coming back from? You know, yeah, it would probably help if you did it with your spouse too, you know, because your spouse has been having an experience all day. I have to talk to men about this. A lot Guy comes home. I had to go to work. What were you doing?

Speaker 1: 26:29

Everything Yep, you know.

Speaker 2: 26:32

So, yeah, put relationship first. First try to put a little bit more time into empathy. And just what's that old? I forget who said it. I want to say maya angelou, but I don't know. People don't care about what you know until they know that you care. Yeah, just maybe put that on your phone as a reminder before your loved one comes home.

Speaker 2: 26:54

And, like a lot of times, elizabeth, it's not a matter of people caring, it's a matter of them forgetting to do that first. You know, right, like parents are walking around, going. Of course I love my kid. Look at all the things I'm doing for my kid. I'm organizing my whole life around making sure this kid is okay and has a good life. So, of course, but in the actual moment, you know, sometimes it's not obvious or sometimes we're taking it for granted. Don't ever take it for granted. Always make sure they know you're there and that you care, care, and then, from that place of feeling connected, from that place of them feeling like you care about their experience, then guess what human beings are wired to do? We're wired to listen to people that we're connected to. We're wired to want to do good for people we love, like if your best friend in the world right now called you up in the middle of us recording and you're like 9-1-1 text and she said I really need you right now. What would you do?

Speaker 2: 28:00

I would take it yeah you would take it and you would go and you'd say I'm sorry, todd, and I got to go, but that's how we are wired. When we first fall in love with somebody, are we like no, I don't want to do that. No, we're like, yeah, let's do that.

Speaker 2: 28:15

You know when people are connected and they're honoring the connection, and I know you care about me, you don't need to convince me to do stuff most of the time. Yeah, it'll be a little here and there, especially with teens and tweens, but for the most part I'll be like okay, you know, and so that's what I'd say. Focus on the relationship first, focus on the empathy and then be a little patient, hold a little space If you're really busy. That's not your kid's problem.

Speaker 2: 28:45

Oh that's you know. I say that to parents all the time Like you had a bad day, you didn't sleep well, you're arguing with your partner something went bad at work or it was something and then your kid comes home and does this thing versus I had a great sleep, me and my spouse are getting along great at work, I got a raise. And then you come home, your kid does the exact same thing. Yeah, how do you react differently? Totally differently, totally differently. Your kid's the same. They just needed to blow off steam for a minute because school was tough, somebody was mean to them, somebody excluded them from a reindeer game at school, their teacher misunderstood something they did and they got in trouble. They just need to experience that for a minute and they need to know you care, and then usually it passes and we're good.

Speaker 1: 29:34

Well, todd, this has been great information. I cannot believe we are already at time. This absolutely flew by for me. You gave so many great tips and spoke to me a lot with a lot of the things you said, so I'm going to be making some notes on mine as well.

Speaker 2: 29:49

Yeah, if it resonates with your listeners and they have more questions. Just let's do it again sometime. I love having these conversations. It's fun, and when I say yes to podcasts, it's because they're doing something different, something that I appreciate, and I'm like ooh, I want to go talk to Elizabeth about that so happy to come back sometime if people would benefit from that.

Speaker 1: 30:12

Absolutely Well. This was a great conversation. I would love to talk with you again and if anybody's interested in, we'll link all the social media accounts and all of that in the notes. So it's super easy for anybody listening to go find Todd on the socials. And you also have a book coming out. If what you've been talking or what we've been talking about is resonating to some listeners, tell us just a little bit about this book, because I know I am going to be pre-ordering it myself.

Speaker 2: 30:36

Oh, I'll send you a copy. Yeah, it's something I've wanted to do for a long time. I actually didn't plan on promoting it. I actually just got the cover from my designer. The final edits are being done. It's about to be listed. It's going to come out in mid-November 2025. The inspiration for finally doing it was all the stuff happening with screens and social media and AI, and I know we're at time. But a point that Gordon Neufeld made to me once is it used to be when we got a new technology, we had decades to figure it out, like when we first got a phone, like a phone at all.

Speaker 2: 31:14

You know, I used to watch that show, downton Abbey, sometimes and they got a phone for the first time and the matriarch of the family would just sit there and pretend she was answering the phone to try to get used to it. Now it's like every single day there's a new technology and a new AI and a new this, and I'm just getting a lot of calls from parents, so it became like the motivating factor. To finish it, it's called the Calm and Connected Parent, an attachment first guide to raising resilient children in the age of screens and AI. I'm proud of it. If people want to know more about what we're doing transformative parentingcom. I haven't been a big socials guy. I've always been just so busy with so many things and always wanted to do it myself. But we have a great YouTube channel. Lots of videos there on some of the top questions we get. There's nothing you know. It's free. There's not even ads in them. I don't think we certainly don't put ads in them, and that's a great resource too, but transformativeparentingcom has links for everything.

Speaker 1: 32:23

I think that's a fantastic cause. I feel like, as parents, we're still figuring out how to deal with social media with our kids, and AI is going to upend everything that we, you know, have already learned. Like you said, as much as everybody's talking about it.

Speaker 2: 32:37

Um, it's going to be bigger than everybody's talking, it just is. Yeah, I got called from a reporter week from a big news organization asking about the sorry to end on a hard note but a kid who committed suicide after chatting with chat GPT and getting guidance that felt like it was encouraging him to do that, that. But I'm mostly getting calls from parents. Like I said before going, my kid's not asking me for advice, but I found out he's been asking a large language model and there's just something that parents feel bad about because they kind of know intuitively that's not the right thing, right? So attachment is more important than ever. Not taking that relationship for granted. More important than ever. Not taking that relationship for granted. Providing what human beings can actually provide that machines cannot, which is empathy, which is regulation, helping a kid calm their nervous system. That's something that doesn't happen with technology and would be hard to replace.

Speaker 2: 33:40

Having said that there's lots of great purposes for it too. But we just have to be really aware because things are changing so fast. The kids are on it all. The parents are actually kind of behind and they don't know a lot of times. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 33:54

Which is going to lead us to be reactive instead of proactive, like you said at the very beginning. So yeah, we'll talk again. Thank you so much for your time and all of your knowledge this has been a great conversation, all right. Thanks for listening.