Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: And you brought up some of the other points about being a lighthouse, which is we are supposed to be looking down at the rocks, we are supposed to be protecting our kids. But let's look at the next phrase. We're making sure they don't crash against them. Absolutely. But you're looking into the waves and trusting that they're going to learn to ride them and committing to prepare them to do so.
So what does it mean to learn to ride the waves, Chris? You know, one of my favorite words is resilience. It means not only withstanding life's curveballs or life's turbulent waters, but being able to thrive despite them, but preparing them to do so. This is what so many parents who love their children intensely need to take a breath, back up and think, how am I parenting best? Because in any given moment we want to protect our children, right? Let's be honest, Chris. You know my daughters and you knew them from the time they were little. And you know that if I could have put bubble wrap around them, I would have, but it wasn't a possibility.
And when you hover, helicopter, Tiger mom, Snowplow dad, when you do that, you send a very clear message to your child.
You couldn't do this without me.
And that is an anti development message. And your children will listen to you, but they'll reject you later.
And they're still going to make mistakes, but they're going to make mistakes in their 20s when you're not watching.
When on the other hand, we understand that the very best protection is you look down at the rocks. If it's a hand on the stove moment, then you know, you don't like talk to your child while they're about to put their hand on the stove moment. You're like, no, right? You don't let them run into the street when they're 4, you're no. You don't get them when they're 16 years old. You don't let them get into a car with a drunk driver. It's an absolute.
But for those other non absolute topics, when we prepare them, that is how to protect them and preparing them, guides them, teaches them, lets them know what the universe is like and allows them to fall down in front of you. And when they fall down, when they, we don't see this as a failure. We see this as an opportunity to learn from the experience. You're less likely to trip over the same stick tomorrow and you're going to learn how to get up, how to recover more effectively.
That is what lighthouse parenting is we're still protecting, but protecting in a real way that's thinking about the future, thinking about human development and thinking about your 35 year old kid and who they're going to be.
[00:03:00] Speaker B: And thanks for that. And I think it's actually a really apt opportunity to start shifting and thinking a little bit, sort of the context here of life at Lawrenceville or life in the independent boarding school setting. And approximately 70% of our students, grades nine through 12, they're boarding students, they live here on campus during the school year, and many have joined us from the farthest reaches of the globe. The lighthouse metaphor is really apropos here because they are coming from oceans away.
And I'm thinking about more than just our boarding students.
The academic, athletic and community offerings here are just so rich that even, even our day students whose families live locally, they're present and engaged on campus from the early morning to the late evening most days of the week. And so as medical director, from my vantage point, this involves a remarkable amount of trust. Many of our parents are superstars in the category of trust because they have to trust in their young person's capabilities to be in this environment and the capabilities of the school to provide an environment that is a safe harbor for young people to safely learn how to sail or stretch their wings, whatever metaphor you want to use. And so in considering that, I guess I'm curious about what wisdom can we draw from lighthouse parenting for parents who are considering sending their young person to this type of school environment? For someone who's kind of looking ahead, maybe they have a younger adolescent and they're considering boarding school as, as the right fit. What, what are the kind of things they should think about in preparing for that type of trust while also maintaining a loving presence in their, in their young person's life.
[00:04:43] Speaker A: So that's a wonderful question. And I had a feeling that we were going to get there. As you know, the bulk of what I do in the universe is prepare adults how to adult effectively, how to be the kind of people young people deserve in their lives.
And the teachers and the coaches and the doctors at Lawrenceville are adulting and, you know, giving young people the same kind of unconditional regard and opportunities to stretch as parents optimally do when they're in their home. So we would be preparing the teachers to have the same lighthouse adulting style. What I would say for the parent, those courageous parents who are taking advantage of this unbelievable opportunity is to create the kind of relationship with their children where their children can still tell them what is going on in their life without fear of disappointing them. So I'd like to make two points. The first point I'd like to make is, is that young people often spare their parents. And they spare their parents when they worry about their parents or when they live in fear of disappointing them. And sometimes young people who are given this incredible opportunity, whether it's from someone who's living 100 miles or 5,000 miles from Lawrenceville, when given this incredible opportunity, children might feel as if they simply can't mess up, that they simply can't be uneven, that they have to do good in everything and not disappoint their child.
So their parents. Excuse me. So, number one, make it clear to your child that you want them to learn who they are, meaning that you understand that they are uneven. Just like every human being in the world, we are uneven.
And the worst thing that can happen is to have a child believe they have to be good at everything because they are expected to be good at everything. So parents need to know that an opportunity like this is for a child to learn what conditions they thrive in, what topics excite them and what are their limitations.
So do not expect perfection and communicate very clearly to your children that you are hoping for them to find their spikes, those areas of interest in which they're going to excel and make a big difference in the world. Right, because your children will spare you of their failures for fear of disappointing you. I'd like to make one other point, which is this concept of what is high yield time.
So I'm imagining that if I lived thousands of miles away from my child and they came home only occasionally, or I had, you know, FaceTime only occasionally, I would think a lot about what is the highest yield in that short communication time. And by the way, this is no different than parenting an adolescent at any other time, because adolescents get busy, parents are busier, and parents are always thinking, I only have their attention for 15 minutes. I got to go to the big topics. And the big topics tend to be performance or behavior oriented. What are you accomplishing? What are you getting for in terms of grades, trophies, or recognition?
And how are you behaving? And is it positive or negative?
And when we have our conversations limited to these high yield topics, we begin to experience pressure rising.
And then your relationship is damaged, right, because your children will not look forward to their visits home.
They won't look forward to the FaceTime conversations because it's always going to be something heavy.
There's room and time for heaviness, but it's More important, to maintain the relationship, to step back and find out from the child what's good for you right now. You want a light day? Let's enjoy each other.
Let's go for a walk. If your child's home for the weekend. Whatever you've always enjoyed doing, do it. That's high yield time.
And make yourself available and avoid that huge D word that terrifies every child, which is fear of disappointment. Because if they're living in fear of disappointing you, you're not going to know what's going on in their life.
[00:09:42] Speaker B: And thanks so much for highlighting that. This is making me realize even more clearly that the subtitle of Lighthouse Parenting is It's raising your child with loving guidance for a lifelong bond.
In another universe, someone might have written a book with the subtitle Raising your child for lifelong Success.
And I'm guessing, because I know you, that the decision to focus on connection rather than performance was a conscious one.
Just any reflections on that, Chris?
[00:10:16] Speaker A: You know, this is like my 10th book and you always know what the books are about from the subtitle. And let's be really, really clear.
This is not a choice between success and human connection.
This is a clear, undeniable, unwavering statement that success looks like human connection.
Right? We want to live in communities, even if we're separated by distance.
Human connection knows no distance and we want for us to remain connected with our children.
When you know, I'm 120, I'm hoping that my 90 year old daughters will be richly in my life.
And that is what good parenting looks like in childhood. It's not installing the control buttons, it's loving guidance.
Remember, if you hover, helicopter control demand, or if your child lives in fear of disappointing you, they will avoid being controlled. Or that uncomfortable feeling of feeling like they're never good enough for you.
If on the other hand, you are a lighthouse, right? A stable force that they can return to the because you are the person whose light shines strongly. And light means I know you, I love you, I value you, I cherish you, and I guide you because I do.
Who doesn't want that in their life? Who doesn't want that no matter how old you are. So this is about getting back to intergenerational connection. Right? So my last book, Congrats yous're having a Teenage is really designed for the adolescent years. What you say, what you don't say, how to optimize that period of development.
This book, Lighthouse Parenting, is designed. Yes. If you want to read it as A parent of an adolescent, yes, but it's really designed for the parent of the 5, 6, 11 year old to make it so that adolescence goes smoothly. And then your whole life is enriched by the thing that matters most, which is relationships.
[00:12:40] Speaker B: So, Ken, I'm going to build on that with our discussion here. First, I want to acknowledge that centering connection and human connection, especially intergenerational connection, beyond anything else, that just feels fundamentally right to me. And I think there's a human element to it that can't be denied. I just think everyone should agree that that's true.
And the dirty little secret is that the metrics and the science also tell. This shouldn't be the reason why we do things. But the science tells us that when connection is centered, that by all the things we measure for success, authentic success, kids actually do better when connection is at the core. And again, I don't think that's the reason why people should do things because it is just the right thing to do and it feels more aligned with what, what I think our, our souls are telling us to do. But the science tells us that people just do better when connections are at the center.
Anything more to say on that?
[00:13:41] Speaker A: Yeah. So we know that from a health point of view, human isolation or lack of belonging has incredibly negative effects on human health. Whereas when we remain connected into our elder years, we, we remain much healthier. We also know that people learn best in the context of relationships, right? That they actually trust the knowledge that they gain, that they incorporate the knowledge better. We know that. We also, you know, think about.
Chris, when we are raising our children, we too often think about the very next step in their lives or which is what college do they get into, or what happens right after they're graduating from Lawrenceville. And my plea, you know, you, you already use some of this language, but there's two things to pay attention to. One is who's the 35 year old I'm raising and the other is parent for the second job. In other words, which college you get into will affect your first job job. The first job you get, it's about the connections you have. It's about who's opening your resume. I don't deny that. But what is also true is that young people are staying on average at their first job for 18 months.
And when the second boss calls the first boss for an interview, they do not ask whether the child made the lacrosse team in high school. They do not ask their SAT scores. They do probably not even ask what high school they went to. No matter how prestigious that school is. They say, does she get along with other people? Does she learn on the job?
Is she a collaborator? And can, can he take constructive feedback? Because those are the things, those are the markers, the measurable markers that say whether or not you succeed in the workplace. The second job is the one your children will stay in for a very long time.
And that is determined by how they perform.
Look at the importance of human relationships in being able to take constructive criticism, in being able to collaborate, in being able to learn on the job, in being able to absorb information.
All of this is about human connection.
And when children are raised to fear that connection because it's full of judgment and disappointment, you don't want constructive criticism if you're used to being criticized instead of embraced, elevated and guided.
Right? So again, think about who your adult child's going to be.
And when you parent in that way, it not only takes pressure off of you in the moment, your relationship will be better and your child will be more successful in the ways that count.
[00:16:56] Speaker B: Ken, thanks so much for highlighting those points. And I think there's a little bit of a leap that we can take here because so far we've talked primarily about Lighthouse parenting.
But one thing, you made a little bit of a shift here. You've talked a bit more about the relationships, the connections with adults that can exist in other settings. At least I think I heard that in your response. And my thinking here has to do with what lighthouse parenting can teach the other adults or youth serving professionals, educators that are in kids lives.
Is this a model that we can replicate in those settings?
And I think you've also pointed to this. Are there resources that aren't necessarily parenting books per se, but that can equip youth serving adults and educators to do exactly this kind of work?
[00:17:50] Speaker A: Well, Chris, that was a softball from you. And the reason it was a softball from you is that you know the answer to this question because you helped me write it. Right.
And you are one of the major authors in this space.
We created a interdisciplinary toolkit called Reaching Teens and it's all about strength based communication.
And it is deeply, deeply comprehensive on how to bring out the best of every young person.
So Reaching Teens is out there. You know, I give quite a few presentations to parenting audiences, but I probably do more to professional audiences to prepare them.
How to adult with a child My vision, my life is about preparing adults to be the kind of people young people deserve in their lives.
And Chris, I don't think that there's anything we said today about parenting that is not directly transferable to an adult.
This is what young people want from adults. They want to be seen and valued and protected.
They want to have people see all that is good and right about them and not focus on their performances and definitely not focus on their momentary failures.
And every single child looks at the adults around them and says, what does that look like? Who can I be?
So all of these lessons apply in a professional space.
I don't necessarily go into professional trainings and say, I want you all to be lighthouse adults. But what I do is teach them all about what we know about how kids turn out based on adults balancing our love for them, our caring for them, our responsiveness and flexibility towards them with the need for us to protect them and have rules that do so.
And we know the outcomes, right? And we know at what point you achieve that balance. How your kid turns out. Kids don't turn out best when they're purely receiving love and no guidance. And they also don't turn out best when they're feeling controlled. You'll do what I say. Why? Because I said so doesn't work in any setting. So yes, everything that we know about adulting applies to every adult that interacts with young people.
[00:20:20] Speaker B: Words to live by and aspirations for all of us who are in the world of helping to serve young people and raising them to become the adults who we need to lead the world in the future.
Ken, one final question. Any additional thoughts you'd like to leave our listeners with today?
[00:20:37] Speaker A: If I had to leave you with one line or a couple lines, it would be really questions to reflect or meditate on.
One I know I already said which is why do we love so that children know that they're capable of being loved. Why do we listen? Because the way to guide is not by talking, it's by listening and shaping.
Why do we listen?
We listen so that people learn they should be heard. And when we do these two things, love and listen, we develop the kind of relationships in which children thrive and develop to their potential.
[00:21:16] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:21:18] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:21:21] Speaker B: That's 1810 for today. Inspiring ideas from Lawrenceville to you. We look forward to our next exploration. If you have comments or questions about today's episode, please reach out to communicationrenaurenceville.org we are all always interested to hear your ideas. A transcript of today's episode is available at Elville 1810castos.com that's L V I L L E 1810 Castos C A S T O S dot com.
