One in five children will not leave

childhood without developing a serious

mental illness. Anxiety, depression,

ADHD, behavioral problems. And what

pisses me off is that we're not really

educating or telling parents the truth

as to why. Why is it that what you say

is so troubling for some people?

Sometimes facts are an inconvenient

truth, but everything I'm going to say

is supported by research.

Erica Komisar is a parenting expert and

psychoanalyst

who uses over 30 years of research

to challenge the societal norms on

parenting and early child development.

There's some myths that really have to

be debunked about how to raise a healthy

child. And the first is daycare is good

for children for socialization. No, it

is so bad for their brain. And it's been

known to increase aggression, behavioral

problems, attachment disorders because

babies need their mothers in the first 3

years for emotional security.

Can a father do that? So, fathers are

important in a different way, and I'll

go through all of that. But they're both

critical because if you're raised

without one, you are missing a piece.

And then there's quality versus quantity

time. Myth. You need to be there a

quality of time as well as a quantity of

time. You can't have a fabulous career

and then come home and be present for

your child on your time. It needs to be

on their time. And there's more.

And we're going to go through all of

them, but are there any areas of

privilege that you need to acknowledge?

Maybe someone who doesn't have a partner

there or someone who is in an extremely

difficult economic situation. I do, but

there are ways to creatively deal with

it. And I'll go through each of them.

So, there's

This has always blown my mind a little

bit. 53% of you that listen to this show

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for you every single week. We'll listen

to your feedback. We'll find the guest

that you want me to speak to. And we'll

continue to do what we do. Thank you so

much.

Erica,

you're clearly on a mission.

And I

get that energy from you that there's

really an idea that you believe that

much of the world doesn't believe or is

struggling to accept in some way, but

it's an important idea.

What is the mission that you're on?

I like to think of it as three P's,

presence, prioritization, and

prevention. And I'll go through each of

them. Um

my mission is to

educate parents and uh policy makers and

clinicians and educators about the

the fact that for children to be

mentally healthy in the future,

you have to be physically and

emotionally present for them throughout

childhood, but particularly in the two

critical periods of brain development,

which are zero to three and nine to 25,

which is adolescence. So, in those two

critical periods of brain development,

uh particularly zero to three,

um much of a child's development depends

on their environment and you are their

environment. So, I run around the world

talking about the importance of physical

and emotional presence, attachment

security. Attachment security is the

foundation for future mental health.

Prioritization, we prioritize everything

today other than our children. We

prioritize our work, our careers,

uh our material success, our personal

desires and pleasures, but what we're

not prioritizing is children.

Um and you know, that's a problem

because if we don't prioritize them,

they break down. They may break down at

three, they may break down at eight, or

they may not break down till they're in

adolescence, but eventually they break

down.

And prevention, there's so much that we

can do. We have a mental health crisis

now in the world.

It varies to a certain degree. In

America, one in five children will not

leave childhood without breaking down at

some point, without developing a serious

mental illness. Anxiety, depression,

ADHD, behavioral problems,

um suicidal thoughts. So, uh we have a

problem. In the UK, it's one in six. In

America, it's one in five. It's around

the world, it's about one in five. That

is a shocking figure. And so, and and

the truth is we can do a great deal to

prevent that. The idea that we are

trying to put out fires without talking

about what is the origin of these

issues. The way that the mental health

care system works now, it's like what I

call cutting the grass.

Uh children are medicated, which is

basically just pain management. Um

they're given CBT therapy, which again

is just pain management. But why aren't

we asking the important questions, which

is

where does emotional regulation

originate? Where does it come from?

When does it start? How do we foster

development in children from a very

young age to promote resilience to

stress and adversity in the future? And

so, those are the my three missions.

And for someone who doesn't know your

work and doesn't isn't aware of you,

they might be thinking, how would you

know, Erica?

How would you know the answer?

So, I'm a psychoanalyst.

Um I'm also a social worker. I started

out as a social worker and then became a

psychoanalyst. I'm also an author of

books on parent guidance and parent

education. Um and I've been in practice

seeing patients. So, the majority of my

work is still seeing patients. I have a

full-time job of seeing patients. And uh

as someone who is also a parent, have

three children of my own.

Um, and so as a parent, as a clinician,

uh, as an author who has for the past

20 years been researching, and what I

did is I collected research in

epigenetics

and attachment theory and neuroscience

and uh, wrote my first book Being There

because what what happened is I was

seeing this uptick in mental illness in

children, and this is really how I got

into it. Um,

about 30 years ago, I started practicing

about 36 years ago, but I was probably 5

years into my practice, and I was seeing

that the families that were coming to

see me had younger and younger children

that were being diagnosed

with very serious mental illnesses and

being medicated at a very young age,

basically silencing their pain.

And what I was observing in my practice

is that those children who were doing

the least well

were the ones whose mothers were the

least present in their lives. So, their

primary attachment figures were the

least present in their lives.

And so then I started looking at the

research. I looked at all the

neuroscience research since the '90s and

all of the new new research that had

come out. Um, I looked at the old

attachment theories which have been

around since the '60s, and I looked at

the epigenetic research which was rather

new, too.

And I saw this trend. I I saw that we

were abandoning our children for our own

desires, for our careers, for material

success.

Um, and there was a great deal of

misunderstanding about the irreducible

emotional needs of children.

We're going to go through all of that

today. I'm very excited to learn more

about all of this. I'm not a parent

myself. Um, from all the

investigative research we've done, you

have three very well-adjusted children.

Um so, congratulations for that, and I

hope to have

successful children myself one day. But,

I'm also just really interested in

understanding myself through the work

that you've done and the work that you

continue to do because we're all at one

point children, and much of the

fingerprints of that early experience

still exist in us today. So, I'm keen to

understand how things that might have

happened to me or anyone listening today

when we were younger

may have shaped us in prosocial,

antisocial ways or productive or

unproductive ways.

You mentioned that you still see clients

and patients today.

What kind of patients do you see?

What are they struggling with, and who

are they? Are you seeing the parents,

the kids, both?

Well, I have a very large parent

guidance practice because of the books

that I write um and the articles I

write. I also write for the Wall Street

Journal and other newspapers. So, I

you know, people find me through my

writing, um and then they reach out for

help. Um

And and so, I have the parent guidance

basically means people come to see me

either both parents or one parent

because they have questions about their

child's development or something's going

wrong. Their child's starting to to

develop symptoms,

um and they don't want to medicate them,

and they want to understand what's

really at the root cause of of of the

issue. And so, that's a a good portion

of my practice, but I also see

individual patients for depression and

anxiety, and I see couples, and you

know, the joke about psychoanalysts is

we're all specialists in depression and

anxiety.

But, um yeah. So, I see individuals and

couples, but a lot of parent guidance

work.

And they come to you typically because

they're they're noticing something is

not right with their child. Sometimes

they'll come preventatively because they

want to raise a healthy child, and

there's so much white noise in society.

There's so much of misinformation.

Our instincts are to lean into our

children. Our evolutionary drive is to

create a feeling of safety and security

for our children and to be as present as

possible and to soothe them when they're

in distress and to be there to teach

them our values and

but society

took a turn.

It took a turn in the I suppose you

could say going back to the Industrial

Revolution. If I really want to go back,

I'll say the Industrial Revolution was a

time when

women were forced into the workplace,

into factories and cities, you know,

they were separated from children for

the first time, but really the turn that

society took that that I think has a lot

to do with what's happening today is the

me movement of the '60s and also the

feminist movement. Both of those

movements which had a tremendously

positive impact on society in one way

also had a tremendously negative impact

on society. When women decided that it

was

cool to go to work and to work full-time

out of the home,

you know, everybody cheered and said,

"Great, you know, women have the same

rights as men and now everybody can be

in the workforce and be independent and

make money and do their own thing. Me,

me, me, me, me."

The problem is that children were

dropped.

They were abandoned.

And their needs which are not needs that

are going to shift because society

shifts because they have irreducible

neurological emotional needs. So, we

know that babies are born neurologically

and emotionally fragile.

And so, what that means is they're not

born resilient. And today, what's being

projected onto babies is they can handle

a lot. They can handle stress, they can

handle separation,

they can handle you going back to work

after 6 weeks or 3 months and leaving

them in daycare with strangers or, you

know, and from an evolutionary

perspective,

babies have always needed the physical

skin-to-skin contact with their mothers

for the first year. Most parts of the

world babies are worn on their mothers'

bodies

because mothers perform a number of

really important functions for babies

that are biological functions based on

our evolutionary need to provide our

babies with what we call attachment

security. Um so, you know, society took

a turn and it's it's um it's caused a

lot of damage. I mean, this mental

health crisis in children

I saw coming

30 years ago.

And it was already, you know, so um you

know, I have uh friends and colleagues

like Jonathan Haidt who says, "Oh, well,

it didn't start till social media." And

that's false because I was seeing this

uptick and if you really look, there was

an uptick in mental illness in children

um going back decades and it had

everything to do with the shift in

society towards

uh self-centeredness, towards

narcissism, towards individualism,

towards me, me, me.

And so, you know, and I always say that

you don't have to have children, period,

to have a satisfying life. But if you're

going to have children, you need to be

equipped to care for them because having

children alone without really

understanding what it means to care for

them and being prepared to take on that

responsibility

is causing our children to break down.

Why do you mention mothers and not

fathers in that? Because you've you seem

to have an emphasis on the role that a

mother plays and it seems to be more

important in your view than the role

that a father plays or maybe even that a

nanny or some other caregiver could

play. And I noticed that on your first

book which was written in 2017,

Being There, on the cover it says why

prioritizing motherhood in bigger

letters

in the first 3 years matters.

Scientifically, evolutionarily, with

studies and research, how can you make

the case to me to make me believe that

the role of the mother in particular is

essential versus a father or other

caregiver?

So, in fact, in the book it talks about

the difference between mothers and

fathers cuz that's an important

question.

Um and the reason I wrote about mothers

is not because fathers are unimportant,

but fathers are important and in a

different way.

So, there's a whole debate in society

about this kind of idea of gender

neutrality that mothers and fathers are

interchangeable, but actually from an

evolutionary perspective as mammals

they're not interchangeable. They serve

different functions.

And those roles and those behaviors are

connected to nurturing hormones. So,

mothers

um are really important for what we call

sensitive empathic nurturing when

children are infants and toddlers. That

means that when children are in

distress, mothers soothe babies and

therefore regulate their emotions from

moment to moment. Every time a mother

soothes a baby

uh with skin-to-skin contact and eye

contact and the soothing tone of her

voice, she's leaning into that baby's

pain and she is regulating that baby's

emotions. And the way I like to think

about it is that

you know, when babies are born, they're

born

emotionally

disjointed. Think about sailing in the

Atlantic. This is how babies' emotions

go. They'll go from zero to 60 in 3

seconds with their emotions.

Um and where we want to get babies is to

sailing in the Caribbean. Not

flatlining, but we want them to be able

to regulate their emotions, but they're

not born that way. And so, mothers

because they soothe the baby from moment

to moment When they're physically and

emotionally present enough in the first

3 years, they help a baby to learn how

to regulate their emotions. So, by 3

years of age, 85% of the right brain is

developed. And by 3 years of age, babies

can then start to internalize the

ability to regulate their own emotions.

Now, if mothers aren't present as the

primary attachment figures to do that

mirroring of emotion, to do that

soothing of of their emotions, then

babies don't learn how to regulate their

emotions. The other thing that's

important that mothers do is they buffer

babies from stress by wearing them on

their body for the first year. And then

by being as present as possible for 3

years, they actually protect babies'

brains from cortisol, the stress

hormone. So, there is a a hormone called

oxytocin. It's the love hormone.

And it is protective against cortisol.

The more a mother nurtures with

sensitive empathic nurturing, meaning

when the baby cries, the mother goes,

"Oh, sweetheart. You know, let me see

the boo-boo. Let me kiss the boo-boo."

That actually raises the oxytocin in the

baby's brain, which then protects the

baby from cortisol. Can a father do

that? So, now fathers, why are fathers

important? So, fathers also produce

oxytocin, but it has a different effect

on their brain. So, for mothers,

oxytocin makes mothers sensitive

empathic nurtures, very vigilant to the

baby's distress.

When fathers produce oxytocin, it comes

from a different part of their brain.

And it makes them more what we call

playful tactile stimulators of babies.

What does that sound like to you?

Playful tactile stimulators of babies.

Throwing the baby up in the air and

tickling the baby and running after the

baby and roughhousing.

And so, that's important for a variety

of reasons. Um first, it encourages

things like exploration and risk-taking.

It encourages separation.

And fathers do this really important

thing, which is they help the baby to

learn to regulate certain emotions. So,

mothers help to regulate sadness, fear,

distress. Fathers help to regulate

excitement and aggression. So, when

fathers aren't in the house, when there

are single mothers raising children

without a father,

often little boys develop behavioral

problems is what we're seeing, that they

can't regulate their aggression. Because

fathers help little boys in particular,

but little girls, too, to regulate

aggression. So, when fathers aren't

around, you'll often see little boys who

are more impulsive, who are more

aggressive. Um, so, the answer is

fathers and mothers are both critical to

the development of children, which is a

very controversial thing to say today.

Because if you're raised without one,

you are missing a piece.

But, they're not the same. And they're

not the same because our hormones

dictate they're not the same. So,

fathers produce a hormone in great

quantities called vasopressin.

Vasopressin is the protective aggressive

hormone.

And what does it do? It helps fathers to

protect their family. There was a study

that was done where mothers and fathers

lay in bed,

and the baby cries.

Uh, it was out of the UK, okay, this

study. The baby cries, and the father

sleep through the baby's distress cries,

but the mothers wake up right away.

Okay?

But, with the rustling of leaves outside

the window, the mothers sleep through

it, and the fathers wake up right away.

Because the fathers are attuned to

predatorial threat. So, our nurturing

hormones make us different. I mean, the

fact that we can say that there are many

things that are similar between women

and men. Of course, we're both

intelligent, we can both be ambitious.

Um but I think the idea that we want to

kind of make everything the same when

it's just not factual. It is the

inconvenient truth that mothers and

fathers

nurturing hormones dictate that if they

are healthy and they've been raised in a

healthy environment, they are different.

Now, does that mean that a father can't

raise a child and be a sensitive

empathic nurturer? It it doesn't mean he

can't take on that role. But if as a

society we can't acknowledge the

differences, then a father can't learn

to be a sensitive empathic nurturer.

Meaning these are instinctual behaviors.

And so that infant, if that father is

going to stay home with that baby,

acknowledging the differences allows

that father then to become a sensitive

empathic nurturer.

So interesting because these aren't the

ideas that are socially accepted. Or at

least the ideas you see on social media.

And funnily enough, as you were

speaking, I recorded everything you said

and I ran it through AI and AI said the

core ideas that you shared

um are well supported by evolutionary

psychology and neuroscience, which is

quite surprising cuz usually

AI argues with people.

so so the thing is none of the books I

write are based on opinion. So I'm I'm

very skittish about saying anything that

isn't backed up with research. Um so

it's everything that I write about and

speak about is is supported by research.

Why is it that what you say is so

troubling for some people?

Have you You know why, right? Cuz it cuz

it makes us confront a set of realities

that It's an inconvenient truth, to

quote Al Gore. It's an inconvenient

truth. Um sometimes facts are an

inconvenient truth. Just like, you know,

climate change is an inconvenient truth.

Um this is an inconvenient truth. It

inconveniences people. It also makes

people feel guilty. So,

I don't believe that guilt is a bad

feeling. I don't believe that guilt is a

bad thing.

Guilt is a sign that your ego is

functioning. It's a sign that the part

of you, the part of your ego called the

superego, can identify something that

feels right and wrong. So,

if you look at a baby who's crying,

who's your baby, and you feel nothing,

that means that there's a part of you

that is dead inside. There's a part of

you that is unempathic towards your own

young. And we would say that that

doesn't make that person a bad person.

It makes that person someone who

probably had some early trauma

themselves, right? It means that they

probably have some kind of attachment

disorder where they can't be attuned to

their their baby's pain, right? So, when

you are guilty, it means you have

internal conflict. It means two parts of

you are struggling with each other. The

part of you that wants to do whatever

you want to do. I want to go out to

work. I want to make money. I want to be

free.

You know, and the other part of you that

says, "Wait a second, but my baby, my

baby needs me. Look at my vulnerable

baby. Look how sad. Look at the distress

that my absence is causing that baby."

So, if we don't feel guilt, then our

species is lost. We're lost.

Now, excessive guilt is another thing.

If you're a good enough mother or good

enough father, and you still feel

guilty, then we call it anxiety. But for

the most part, what I say makes a lot of

women and men feel guilty.

And again, I don't see that as a bad

thing. And I think when we tell

parents to turn away from their guilt

instead of turning toward it,

When we turn towards our internal

conflicts, we tend to make better

decisions for ourselves, for our

children, for our families. Um, but when

we turn away from those conflicts, we

tend not to make good decisions, and

those tend to have long-term

consequences.

What exactly are you inconveniencing

with your truth?

What are the ideas that you're That you

have to sacrifice time

and money

and freedom.

That if you want to raise healthy

children, it's going to require

discomfort and frustration and

sacrifice.

And what's interesting is that what's

also happened is because we're raising

our children in such a selfish,

self-centered environment.

Um,

young people are more fragile. They are

more emotionally fragile. More of them

have attachment disorders. They can't

bear frustration.

They can't bear pain. They can't bear

sleeplessness. You know, the idea that

you have to get a baby nurse because you

can't get up in the middle of the night

with your own baby, and that's become

the norm in certain socioeconomic

circles. I mean,

so

women and men

always raised children in in history in

extended family circles, right?

Um, they weren't isolated. And today

parents are very isolated. So, you would

have your mother staying with you or

you'd have your sister staying with you

or you'd live in a big house and there'd

be people to support you.

Um,

I started a nonprofit uh recently

because I found that so many mothers,

it's called Attachment Circle, so many

mothers feel so isolated

that dealing with the pain and the

discomfort of mothering alone is too

much for them.

So, there is that. So, we live in a very

strange society where people are

separate from one another in their own

houses and apartments and they don't

depend on one another cuz dependency is

a bad word and but there is also this

issue of how are we producing such

fragile fragile youth that even the

discomfort and the frustration of

raising children is too much for them.

Is there a big economic component to

this as well, right? Because if you're

raising children in isolation, the

probability that you have

disposable income

or at least enough money to be able to

just stay at home and raise the kids and

still maintain any standard of quality

standard of life

is lower if you're not doing it with a

big extended family that can support and

and pay for some of those costs.

Interestingly, yes and no to your

question.

Um

people who have

less economic resources are in general

less isolated, but they are also

isolated today. You have a lot of single

mothers raising children

not in an apartment with other family

members who've had to move to other

cities or countries to make a living

um who are really isolated.

I I you know, again, it I think it

crosses socioeconomic lines. Um

but with wealthier people, more affluent

people,

um

they're opting for isolation, many of

them. They're buying big houses, they're

living in the suburbs, or or they're not

wanting to lean on anyone, right? So,

we have what I call a family diaspora.

It's really what it it is, um

which is that people will move away from

their families of origin when they have

children, which is very bizarre and

anti-instinctual. So, the world's become

a global place and we can move wherever

we want, but doesn't it make common

sense? Isn't it a reasonable clause that

you would want to move closer to your

extended family?

Even if they're a pain in the neck,

unless they're abusive. Um, because it

provides you with support. It provides

you with extended family support, but

that's not what's happening.

People are choosing to live

geographically distant from their

families of origin and so it's making it

harder for families. It's making it

harder for women.

It's making them feel more isolated. But

what if they they want to they've got

their own career, they've got their own

passions, there are things that they

love doing and that means that they have

to be working in a major city or they

have to be traveling

to pursue those things?

You just said it. What if they have

passions? What if they have a career?

The problem is children do best in

extended family situations. So, you

know, you can have a fabulous career and

move far away from your family and when

you're young and single and I even call

it single when you're married, but don't

have children, you're still really

single. Um, you know what I say to

parents is that

your life won't be so fabulous if you

have children and you're not present for

them

physically and emotionally, particularly

in the early years, because what happens

is they break down and the expression

goes that a parent is only as happy as

their least happy child.

And so, there is no fabulous life if

your children are breaking down and

that's what families are learning

is that, you know, all of that freedom

and all that fabulous me time comes at a

cost if you have children.

So, one would say then, well, I'll just

not have children then.

And that would be fine. And so, there

are a lot of people that are saying

today, I don't see the value in being

responsible for another human being. And

what they're missing out on is the deep

and rewarding emotional connection to

your children. It's a love like no other

love. But if you've had

if you've had trauma as a child, if

you've had parents who were narcissistic

or resented parenting or

uh you know, were distracted or mentally

ill, you know, you

may already have had that trauma that

that implies that later it's harder to

connect, right? So, those attachment

disorders that I was referring to

earlier. There's three kinds of

attachment disorders. There's the

avoidant attachment disorder. So, what

does that mean? So, a healthy attachment

looks like this.

Um when you return home, your child

feels so securely attached to you.

Meaning, you've gone out for an hour or

two for dinner with your spouse. You

come home and your baby is happy to see

you and the reunion, what we call the

reunion, is a beautiful reunion. The

baby is joyful and happy and you know,

that's healthy attachment. It means that

you've made your baby feel so safe and

secure because you are there primarily

and have prioritized them the majority

of the time as the primary attachment

figure. That when you come home, your

baby welcomes it.

But what we're seeing is more and more

children developing attachment disorders

because their parents are

pushing the limits of how much they can

leave those babies and putting them in

things like institutional care and

leaving them for long hours at a time

and traveling for their fabulous careers

and their fabulous lives at ages when

babies really can't tolerate that kind

of separation.

When a parent comes when the primary

attachment figure, usually the mother,

comes home and the baby turns away from

you and turns toward the babysitter or

just turns away.

That baby has the beginning of what's

called an avoidant attachment disorder.

Now, that's correlated later on

with things like depression and

difficulty forming attachments later on.

The next kind of attachment disorder is

called an ambivalent attachment disorder

and the mother then comes home

and the baby clings to the mother for

dear life because the internal voice in

that baby is my mommy's going to leave

me again. So, I have to hold on to her.

Now, that baby is fractious and can't be

soothed and will not let go of that

mother, you know, holding on for dear

life. What I call like the rhesus

monkeys did to the wire cages, right?

And that's correlated later on with

anxiety in youth.

The disorganized attachment disorder is

different than the other two in that the

other two have a strategy. So, think of

an attachment disorder as a strategy. A

child who's left for too many hours by

their parent or whose parent is

physically present but emotionally

checked out. That baby has to cope, has

to have a strategy.

Turning away from the mother is a

strategy and the internal narrative is

my mommy isn't present for me, can't

isn't isn't here for me, won't won't be

there for me. I can't trust my

environment. And that baby says, "And

I'm going to have to

cope on my own."

What we call learned helplessness.

Um the ambivalent attachment disorder,

you know, that baby is the strategy is,

you know, I'm going to hold on because

if I don't hold on, she's going to leave

again.

Disorganized attachment disorder is the

hardest to treat um

because the baby has no strategy. So,

the baby cycles through many strategies.

The baby will go from clinging to

avoiding to being enraged and even to

slapping or hitting the mother and then

cycling through again. Um and that baby

that develops a disorganized attachment

disorder, those are more Those babies

it's correlated later with borderline

personality disorder. And we're seeing a

huge rise in borderline personality

disorders. And those are the kids who

are cutting themselves, who are trying

to commit suicide.

Um we have a a mental illness crisis the

likes of which we've never seen in

history. And it has everything to do

with how we're raising our children. You

seem pissed off under that calm

demeanor. Pissed off?

Yes, I suppose I am. I'm not pissed off

at the people. I'm pissed off at a

society that is lying. We're not really

educating or telling parents the truth.

So, there's four attachment disorders.

Avoidant, secure, ambivalent,

disorganized.

Well, one secure isn't a disorder. So,

there's secure and then there's three

attachment disorders. Yeah.

Avoidant, ambivalent, disorganized.

Yes.

How does that manifest when you're an

adult? So, how would I know cuz you

know, I can relate to some of these and

I'm wondering how that would then

manifest in my relationships in my life

as an adult.

Outside of the obvious mental health,

you know, situations. So, avoidant An

avoidant attachment disorder would be

someone who um

can't form meaningful and deep

connections, can't

commit, has difficulty committing, has

difficulty trusting

in the intimacy and the the depth of

intimacy in a relationship. An

ambivalent attachment disorder would

would be someone who's highly highly

anxious.

Um someone who clings to you, uh calls

you, maybe uh a woman you dated in the

past who called you five times a day to

check on you, was worried that you'd be

the little fish that swam away.

Um and suffocate. They suffocate the

people they love because they're afraid

to let go.

Um disorganized attachment, borderline

personality disorders, they tend to be

very emotionally volatile.

Um there's a lot of anger there, and um

and there's a lot of self-harm,

self-harming behavior there.

Do they end up

attracting

a certain attachment style? So, if I'm

an avoidant, do I then end up attracting

avoidants, or do I

is there any research on that, on how we

then date? I'm guessing secures go for

secures. Yeah, secures Well, if you're

healthy, you're attracted to

reciprocally healthy relationships, and

you trust your environment, so you trust

in loving relationships, and um

avoidants sometimes are attracted to

avoidant

people because there's no conflict

there. So, in other words, someone who

can't commit with someone also who can't

commit.

Um that can break down, though, at some

point. So, remember that these are

pathological defenses. So, you know, we

use the word defense because it means to

protect one, right?

And and defenses help us until they no

longer help us. And so, we say

attachment disorders are pathological

defenses, meaning they don't usually

last a lifetime, they break down at some

point.

And so, you might be with another

avoidant attachment disordered person,

but at some point one of you breaks

down, and then realizes that you need

the other.

And then,

you know, then you're with in a

relationship with someone who can't give

back. So, yeah, as we say, like levels

of water meet. So, people will be

attracted to one another often of the

same ilk, but but it isn't necessarily a

healthy relationship.

And of all these four attachment styles,

who do you think which attachment style

from in your opinion and then from your

observations and the people that you've

seen is most likely to have a successful

and then also unsuccessful relationship?

Oh, well, secure attachment will have

a successful I mean, secure people with

secure attachment will be drawn to

healthy, reciprocal, loving

um deep connections because they've had

a deep and loving connection with their

mother. So, remember I said that you

it's only after 3 years of age that you

internalize the feeling of security.

And where you internalize the feeling

that the world

is a safe place and you can trust the

people in it. And you can trust to love

another person.

And so, you know, we we throw that word

trust around, but we don't realize that

it comes from the very beginnings of our

development.

When we don't trust others,

it's generally because we couldn't trust

those that we were to depend upon when

we were

at our most vulnerable stage. And what

about the other the alternative? So, if

which of these attachment styles is

least likely to have

successful relationships and

That's disorganized, yeah. They have a

very hard time forming relationships,

holding on to relationships, um

Yeah, I would say it's it's they're the

most complicated to treat and they're

also the most complicated in terms of,

you know, being able to have successful

relationships in the future.

Uh I was wondering as you were speaking

whether if I have more kids, so if I

have 10 young kids Yeah. is there a

higher probability that of neglect in

those kids because I do if if I'm a

mother, I just don't have time for

all of these kids at the same time. They

can't all be on my chest at the same

time. Yeah, it's it's a good question.

Well, there's something in the

developing world called maternal

depletion syndrome, which is that

mothers can actually die in the

developing world of having too many

children in too short a period of time.

Uh they get depleted physically, but

they also get depleted emotionally.

I'm going to say it right now so

everybody can hear it who's watching

this. Having children

is stressful.

It is frustrating.

It does require that you are sleepless

for the first 5 years. It requires that

you can tolerate a lot of discomfort and

frustration.

So, if there was a job description,

first it would say the most joyful

uh enriching

thing you can do in your entire life.

But, what comes with that to foster

healthy development is frustration, lack

of sleep, stress, uh discomfort. And so,

that should be part of the job

description.

Yeah, it seems to be such an important

principle for life generally that

everything has an

a trade-off. And I think it was Einstein

that said uh for every force there's

like an equal and opposite counterforce

or something to to to that effect. And a

lot of people are

choosing not to make the decision to

have kids. I was looking at some stats

around this. The European Union

witnessed only 3.8 million births in

2022, nearly half the number recorded

six decades ago,

marking one of the lowest birth rates in

history.

France, for example, known for its

robust family policies

has seen a decrease from 830,000

children born in 2010 to just 670,000

in 2023, the lowest since World War II.

And this is a huge global trend across

especially countries that have a lot of

money. It is. So, I speak at a big

conference called the Alliance for

Responsible Citizenship, and they talk

about a lot of these alarming dropping

birth rates. The truth is though that

as countries become more developed birth

rates do decline to a certain degree.

That has to do with economics some of

it. But there's a trend that's happening

that's worse than this which is people

it's not that they're having less

children which actually you know,

everybody has their own limits in terms

of their capacity to give and to love

and so for some people maybe one child

is enough. For other people five

children isn't enough meaning they have

so much inside of them to give, right?

But the alarming thing for me isn't the

dropping birth rates due to economics,

you know, so maybe people aren't having

10 children like they used to they're

having three children or two children,

right?

The alarming thing for me is that people

are not having children.

That's more alarming to me because

that's more a sign not of a country

developing

but of a country and a society of a

modern society which does not see the

value

in

in raising children and having deep and

loving relationships be a priority

in your life.

Those people would say I have deep and

loving relationships with my partner,

with my dog, with my uncle, auntie,

friends, etc. It's different and why is

it different? It's a good question. It's

different because

in the end your relationship with your

partner or with your auntie or with your

dog isn't the same

level of dependency. The ability to care

for another human being

to allow another human being to be

dependent on you to devote to that human

being

is a growing transforming experience for

human beings. One would say that

not sure I completely buy this fully

because but Jordan Peterson I think has

said, I think it was Jordan who said

that you can't fully become an adult

if you don't have a child. Now, I'm not

sure I would go that far because there's

some people who can't have children. But

I do think that there is something

in terms of developmentally on an adult

development level

that transforms you, that is meant to

to transform you in being generative and

having children. Again, it's not for

everyone and I do say this that um

I'm not part of the pro-natality

movement where I say everybody should

have children. I don't think everybody

should have children.

But I do think that if you're going to

have children

then you need to look deeply at your own

upbringing and your own losses and your

own early traumas before you bring them

into this world so you can repair

whatever it is you need to repair and

not uh create what we call generational

expression of things like attachment

disorders and mental illness and

Cuz a lot of people are struggling now

to have kids, even those that want to.

Yeah. Um I was looking at some stats and

there's a global prevalence of

infertility.

Approximately 18% of adults worldwide,

about one in six has experienced

infertility at some point in their

lives. Yeah. Between 2015 and 2019,

about roughly 15% of US women aged 15 to

49 experienced impaired fertility and in

the UK, research indicates that one in

eight women listening to this now and

one in 10 men aged 16 to 74 have

experienced infertility, which is

defined as unsuccessfully attempting

pregnancy for a year or longer.

And I've spoken to a lot of people

actually that have tried to have kids.

Yeah. For years, two years.

It's very sad when want children and

they can't have children. It is

incredibly sad. When you think about

what's contributing to that, what how do

you diagnose that infertility challenge?

There are a lot of theories. Some are

environmental. Some are the fact that

we're delaying having children. We're

lying to women.

And to men. We're telling them, "Freeze

your eggs." In fact, this is a little

disturbing. I'll tell you about this.

That law firms now are um

paying for the freezing of their young

female associates' eggs.

I find that disturbing.

Um saying, "Freeze your eggs. Work

really hard for us. Yeah, you can have

children later." And the truth is a lot

of them can't. Because when you freeze

eggs, it's not a guarantee of fertility.

It's not a guarantee that those eggs

will turn into embryos. It's not a

guarantee that those embryos will turn

into babies. So, there's the age piece.

Um There is also and there's the

environmental piece. There is also the

stress piece, which we are not talking

about. Um there's a component to getting

pregnant that is about stress. We have

more stress

on both men and women. You know, it used

to be that men died sooner because they

had more stress. But now I think it's

evened out the odds. I think women may

die sooner because they have the stress

of working and raising children for the

most part. Um but the point is that that

uh

the stress that

young adults face because they're trying

to you know,

we should talk about some of the other

myths. What's another myth? We'll weave

it through this talk. Another myth is

you can do everything all at the same

time and do it well.

Myth. That's a big myth. You can't.

You can't have a fabulous career

working full-time and traveling and

being fabulous and raise healthy

children. The good news is life is long.

You may live till 120 like Moses and I

think of your generation, you're younger

than me, but um

I think you probably will live well over

100. Um and so what that means is you

have many, many, many, many, many, many

years to have a fabulous career when

your children don't need you so much,

but you have a very small window

to create that emotional security for

your children that will be the core of

them. You know, we talk a lot about your

physical core and core training.

This is your emotional core.

This is the emotional core of human

beings, attachment security and a

feeling of safety that you can rely on

the people who you need most in the

world to be there when you need them.

That is your emotional core.

How did you manage? You're a mother of

three. You've raised three very

wonderful, well-adjusted children. Yeah.

But you're also successful. Yep. You

have books. You you're you're traveling

around the world, you said.

So I'm a good example.

Um I had a career when I was in my 20s.

Um

and I got married when I was

I met my husband when I was 27 and I got

married when I was just shy of 30 or I

was 30.

Um and then we had children in our 30s.

Uh so before we had children, I was

working I was seeing something like 40

hours of patients a week.

And I was working into the wee hours of

the night. I would work till 11:00 at

night coming home exhausted.

Then we had children, but it was an

agreement that we had that when we had

babies, I would take a good long period

off

and then really go back very, very, very

minimally. And I had the kind of career

by choice

that I could have control over and be it

could be flexible and I could control

it.

And so, I took 6 months off with each

child.

And then after 6 months, only went back

to work an hour and a half a day, 5 days

a week.

So, just we had an agreement, my husband

and I, which is it would be just enough

to pay a mother's helper, a nanny.

And so, and we did without in those

years. We did you know, second homes. We

did without fancy clothes. We did

without

the other things that many of our peers

were getting and traveling

and doing. We said, "What's important to

us is that we pair down, not expand now.

This is We're expanding as parents, so

we want to pair down materially. Life is

long and you can have a successful

career." Some of the women that I

interview for my book

are women who didn't even start their

careers until they were in their 40s

after they had children that were older.

Could it have worked if your husband

stayed home instead of you?

In your view? Because I'm trying to

understand if you're saying that dads

don't need to be as there, present as

much as the mother.

They have to be there in a different

way.

In the early days, men don't breastfeed.

So, that's the first thing. Unless you

can show me a man who has grown breasts

and can actually breastfeed, maybe it's

coming. I don't know.

But for now,

um women's bodies connect them to their

babies. They connect them through birth.

They connect them through breastfeeding.

There is a physical component and a

hormonal component to infancy and

motherhood. And there really is a

difference in the way that mothers

respond to babies and fathers respond to

babies. Now,

when do fathers become really important?

It's not that the father isn't important

to give the mother a break or to bond

with the baby or to bathe the baby, but

what that baby needs is that attachment

security to that primary attachment

figure. So, the mother. Usually the

mother. Sometimes it's the father, but

usually the mother. Fathers with their

playful tactile stimulation,

they become really important when

children become mobile.

When children start to crawl and toddle,

when they're around 18 months to 2 years

old, fathers become incredibly exciting.

And they're really important. So, when

fathers aren't around in those days,

when children are starting to explore

the world, those children have a harder

time separating from mothers. So, it's

really important to have what we say,

the yin and the yang. What we are doing

now is we are

um not prioritizing attachment security,

which is the foundation for then healthy

separation. And when healthy separation

starts, fathers are critical.

When you have another child, a second

child, fathers are critical because

fathers seduce the older child. They

say, "Come on, let's go out and play.

Let's go kick the soccer ball. Let's go

to the swing set." And they give a space

to the mother with the next baby. They

help the older children to grow up.

Earlier on, you mentioned a study that I

read about when I was studying

psychology once upon a time, which is

the rhesus the rhesus monkey study with

the wire mother. For anybody that's

never heard about that study, I think

it's quite important to understand the

profound impact that

touch and um

Well, that was an attachment study.

Yeah, what was it what's the what's

touch called from a in a sci- in a

science world? Skin-to-skin.

Skin-to-skin.

Can you give me an overview of that

study and what it showed for people that

aren't aware of it?

Well, they took these baby rhesus

monkeys and they they let some be with

the mothers and the mothers nurtured

those babies and those babies became

healthily attached and secure and those

were the healthy emotionally healthy

babies.

Then they gave um another subset of

monkeys um

a wire mother covered with a piece of

cloth or fur or something.

And those babies became very neurotic,

but at least they were clinging. They

became like the ambivalent attachment

babies because there was no response

from the mother, but at least they were

holding on to this mother.

And then they gave and these babies

became very neurotic and then they gave

this subset of babies nothing.

And those babies literally lost their

minds.

And um

I mean, there are other studies which

are more recent than that. That's quite

an old study. There There is a

researcher named Michael Meany. He did a

study on licking and grooming. Animals

who lick and groom their young, meaning

are nurturing skin-to-skin, lick and

groom.

Uh in human terms, that would be

holding, touching, loving, skin-to-skin.

Those uh if if a mother licked and

groomed her young,

that baby would become more resilient to

stress in the future.

The babies who were not licked and

groomed by their mothers

become became less resilient to stress

in the future. In addition, the babies

who were more resilient to stress

because their mothers had licked and

groomed them passed down generationally

the ability to lick and groom the next

generation.

What happened to the babies who weren't

licked and groomed? Guess what happened?

They didn't pass it down. Right. And

that's what's happening to humans today.

If we don't lick and groom our babies, I

mean, you know, take it for whatever.

Um if we don't lick and groom our

babies, it we don't pass on resilience

to stress and adversity, but we also

don't pass on the desire to lick and

groom your to have babies.

Your story going back to your story

which we're talking about, are there any

areas of privilege that you need to

acknowledge that someone else listening

to this now goes, "Yeah, but that's a

right for you." Because

you know, maybe someone who didn't have

a partner there

or someone who

is in a

difficult economic situation extremely

difficult economic situation living in

the projects in Harlem or something. I

really want to I'm saying this because

Well, it's not the mothers in the

projects in Harlem cuz I'll tell you the

mothers in the projects in Harlem

stay home with their babies. That's

what's interesting. Very poor people in

America.

So, let me just say

I love America. America sucks.

And I'll tell you why America sucks from

my perspective. And I say this

internationally. I go around the world

saying, "America sucks." And I'm going

to tell you why.

Um, we are the only country in the world

other than Papua New Guinea who does not

have a paid

parental maternity leave.

We do not have paid maternity leave.

Nobody cares about children.

They care about the GDP and the bottom

line. And the people who are out there

talking about this stuff are economists

saying, "Women have to work work work

for the economy." Nobody cares about

children. Because if we cared about

children

our tax money would be

in paid leave. Not for 3 months. Not for

6 months. For at least a year. In

Hungary they have 3 years. Slovenia,

Slovakia,

uh, Estonia has 3 years. Hungary I think

has 2 years of paid leave. Sweden, I

have some issues with Sweden, but Sweden

has 14 months.

Sweden after 14 months makes women go

back to work full full full time and put

them in institutional care and all those

babies are breaking down.

So, 14 months isn't even enough. So, but

if we could even get to a civilized

place of 1 year of paid leave in this

country

and then the next 2 years some way that

parents could be

complemented so they could work

part-time, supplemented so they could

work part-time.

Um you know, I'm a I'm a reasonable,

realistic person. I know this country is

never going to go for 3 years of paid

leave even though I would love them to.

I also know that this country isn't

going to go for an entitlement called

paid leave because that's the kind of

country we are. We talk a big game, but

we don't want to put our money where our

mouth is.

There is the possibility, now that the

Republicans are in

of a creative solution

which is potentially using things like

social security in advance, borrowing

from your social security. So, I'm a mom

and I say, "Ah, to stay home, I can

borrow from my social security for a

year

and then work a year or two longer

in my life." Wouldn't you say that most

women who wanted to stay home with their

babies would say, "I'll work longer so I

can stay home with my baby." There are

ways to creatively deal with it. Um

from my perspective, this is what's

going on. People on the left will not

compromise. They'll only do an

entitlement called paid leave, but they

only are asking for it for 3 to 6

months. After that, they want women back

in the workforce and institutional

daycare. So, I'm not on the left.

Um people on the right talk a lot about

family. They're the party of the family

now. But they do not want tax dollars to

go into paid leave. They They don't like

the entitlements that already exist and

they don't want to add any more.

And so, the only way they're going to

give it to women and men is if

they put skin in the game. Mhm.

This is the country we live in. Again,

I'm a realist.

I think in any way that we can give

families the choice to care for their

own children, particularly in the early

years, we will create a population

of healthier children. How do we know

that more paid leave equals better

children, less strain on the health care

system in terms of mental health,

mortality, whatever it might be? How do

you make a statistical or a scientific

research-backed case that if we had 3

years of paid leave in the United States

or in the UK, or Australia, Canada,

wherever, that the it would be a net

positive for society outside of it just

being an opinion?

Well, the research shows the

longitudinal attachment research shows

that children who are insecurely

attached at 12 months of age, 20 years

later are insecurely 80% of them are are

insecurely attached and suffer from

mental disorders.

That's what the longitudinal attachment

research says. So, we now have decades

of

basically children were followed from

when they were infants. And the ones who

were securely attached, 20 years later

are still securely attached and doing

great. And the ones who were insecurely

attached, most still insecurely attached

and it's tied and correlated to all of

these mental illness conditions, right?

So, there's a lot of research to show

what attachment security does for

children in the long run.

So, you know, you're asking a question

about

I mean, I suppose you could take your

paid leave and go play

soccer in the park and go play tennis

and I don't know, like play cards with

your friend I mean, you know,

how can I say how people are going to

use their paid leave? But if your paid

leave is being used to be home with your

child, then it's going to benefit your

child.

So many of the the guests that I speak

to on this podcast, especially those

that become incredibly successful um

athletes, entrepreneurs, whoever.

They often have some form of neglect in

their past. Mhm. Richard Williams,

Serena and Venus Williams' father, he um

he was very intense with them from a

very young age and he's raised two of

the greatest tennis players in history.

Joe Jackson was strict and off- often

controversial with Michael, who went on

to become the King of Pop. Earl Woods,

who was Tiger Woods' father, was very um

intense in his coaching and mentoring

style, which led him to become great and

obviously Beyoncé is the other example I

gave, who Matthew managed Matthew, which

is uh Matthew and Tina, who were parents

to Beyoncé, managed Destiny's Child and

Beyoncé's solo career, meticulously

shaping them into a global superstar.

So, parents think, you know, I want to

raise

kids that are superstars. I I want I

want my kids to be great.

I'm going to say right now, I don't

recommend that as a professional. Okay.

I'm just saying. So, I can't comment on

a lot of those people because I could

get in a lot of trouble for commenting

on a lot of those people, but I will say

that amongst those people,

there

is controversy, meaning

at least one of those parents, and I

don't know the history of the others,

was abusive. And so, you could say that

narcissism

is abusive to children. When we project

our needs and desires and likes

and who we are onto our children, we're

not letting them authentically be

themselves. The greatest gift you can

give your child is to see your child as

an authentic individual

who is

an individual and themselves

and not to see them as a mini-me.

Um when you start architecting their

life, there's a good chance you're going

to lose that child emotionally at some

point. They're either going to hate you,

they're They may be successful in their

careers. They may have terrible personal

lives. They may be narcissistic parents

themselves. So,

I don't recommend that school of

thought. What I do recommend is if your

child shows promise in something that

they also seem to love and have a drive

to be good at, then you can support that

drive. Just make sure to keep yourself

in check along the way to make sure that

they are driving it,

not you.

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ADHD. Yeah. Okay. I don't feel like I

don't even have to ask a question here,

but just to set the stage, the reason

why I'm so compelled by this is just

this

I have to say it, the shocking rise in

diagnosis and prescriptions over the

last

10 years. Uh between 20 2000 and 2018,

ADHD diagnoses in the UK rose

approximately 20-fold.

Yes.

Among boys aged 10 to 16, diagnosis

increased from 1% roughly to um about

3.5% in 2018.

And in men aged 18 to 29, there was a

nearly 50-fold increase in ADHD

prescriptions during the same period.

And the same applies to the United

States, where an estimated 15.5 million

adults in the US have been diagnosed

with ADHD. Approximately one in nine US

children have been diagnosed with ADHD

at some point, with 10.5% having a

current diagnosis. It

I don't know where ADHD was, but the

conversation around it, the

prescriptions, the diagnosis seem to

have really surged into culture in a

really, really big way.

What's going on?

So, ADHD was one of the factors that

drove me to write Write Being There, um

because I was seeing this huge uptick in

ADHD diagnosis and children being

medicated so, so early. Do you know what

the fight or flight reaction is? That's

when the

sympathetic nervous system

starts to kick into action and Yes. So,

well, it's basically our evolutionary

response to uh predatory threat. So, if

a saber-tooth tiger was chasing you,

you either stood and fought,

fight,

or you ran for your life, flight.

So, when our children are under stress,

they go into

fight

or flight.

So, one of the first signs that a child

is under stress that they cannot manage

is when they become aggressive in

school. They hit, they bite, they throw

chairs.

Um they have trouble,

you know, socially in

daycare or preschool or even in school.

Or they become distracted, which is the

flight part of fight or flight.

So, what's happening is their nervous

systems, the stress regulating part of

their brain is getting turned on. So, we

say that the stress regulating part of

their brain has to do with a little

almond-shaped part of the brain called

the amygdala. It's a very primitive part

of the brain, very old part of the

brain.

And it regulates stress throughout our

lives. It helps us to manage it.

What we know is that part of the brain

is supposed to remain offline

for the first year to 3 years, which is

why mothers wear babies on their bodies.

It's why babies stay close to their

mothers in the first 3 years

to keep the amygdala quiet and only

incrementally incrementally expose

children to stress and frustration that

they can manage. So, imagine taking

small bites of it so you can digest it,

right?

And your mother's there to help you

digest the stress.

What we're doing now by separating

mothers and babies, by putting babies

into day care with strangers,

um is by sleep training babies, all

these weird things that we're doing to

babies is we're turning the amygdala on.

We're making it active precociously, too

early. What happens when the amygdala is

activated too early is it becomes very

active and very large very quickly.

The problem is then it shrivels up and

burns out also

because

it cannot manage that kind of stress so

early. When it ceases to be functional,

it ceases to be functional for a

lifetime.

And so, it's very important to protect

you know, what's the expression? The

family jewels. It's very These are the

family jewels in the brain of a baby.

This is the jewel, the amygdala. You

want to keep the stress to a an absolute

minimum in the first year, which is why

sleep training is dangerous.

It's why letting babies cry it out, it's

why putting babies into daycare, it's

why leaving babies for hours on end when

they're so so very fragile

um is so bad for their brains because it

gets the cortisol flowing, which is the

stress hormone, but it makes this part

of the brain very active, so it grows

grows grows and then pff

and ceases to be functional in the

future.

Like a PTSD response.

So, what we know is that these children

are in hypervigilant

states of stress. ADHD children

ADHD children. Hypervigilant states of

stress.

If you stay in a hypervigilant state of

stress long enough, you go into a

hypovigilant

state of stress, which then causes

depression.

So, what we have now are not disorders.

So, there was a whole movement to take

the D off of ADHD

cuz it's not a disorder.

It is a stress response. And instead of

asking the right questions, which are,

"Okay, what's causing the stress? How do

we make sure that our children are not

exposed to this kind of stress because

they're going into fight or flight?"

So, the nervous system, as you said, the

brain has an on switch and an off

switch. The on switch to stress is the

amygdala, the hippocampus is the off

switch. And you'd say the stress

response is in a negative feedback loop.

It's it's it's actually important. Like,

in other words, if a saber-tooth tiger

is chasing you, very important that you

can activate, right? Run or fight.

So,

the stress response is supposed to be

short term.

It's supposed to be not It's supposed to

be acute rather than chronic. So, we can

kind of manifest it. We can

activate it. But then it's supposed to

be turned off by the turn off switch,

the hippocampus. What we're seeing in

children's brains is that the amygdala

is growing very precociously large and

the hippocampus, which is the off

switch, is very small.

So, we have this problem. As we say,

Houston, we have a problem. We have an

on switch going full speed, gas no

brakes, and no off switch. And that's

causing ADHD, behavioral problems that

are

hugely rising in children in school. A

lot of aggression and violence. And so,

that's what's happening. This is a

stress response. And again, instead of

asking the right questions like, where

is this coming from? What's causing the

stress? Instead, we silence the

children's pain. We tell we tell

parents, we'll medicate it and we'll

just relieve the symptoms.

For me, that's malpractice. The way we

treat ADHD is malpractice. A child

develops

goes into fight or flight when they are

under stress. It could be psychosocial

stressors at home, in the family. It

could be at school. It could be with

their friends. It could be a learning

disability. There's so many things that

can cause kids stress. So, instead of

medicating them, why don't we figure out

what's happening to that child deeply

that's causing them to go into fight or

flight.

Isn't that point of view? I have two

questions here. The first is, how do you

know that it's stress? And the second

is, if it is stress, then that the

problem or at least the inconvenient

truth that that then creates is that the

parent is responsible.

Yes. That's the There's the inconvenient

truth. For their child's ADHD.

Yes. Yes. That's the inconvenient truth.

It's not so simple. Sometimes it's the

families. Usually, it's the family,

particularly with small children. But,

when children get to school,

it could be social. As I said, you know,

you can't control whether your children

are exposed to social issues or

bullying. Or, there's many things that

can cause stress in children. But, when

they're very little,

you are their environment. So, the

inconvenient truth is that when your

child gets an ADHD diagnosis, the first

thing you should do is go to a therapist

who will do parent guidance with you.

Don't rush that child to a psychiatrist

to medicate them. You go with your

partner spouse and talk to a parent

guidance expert about what could be

causing this child to feel such stress.

And, look at the psychosocial stressors.

Look at the influences and the dynamics

in this child's life that would be

causing them to go into a state of

stress like this. Give me some examples

of the type of stresses, the everyday

stresses that we're now exposing

children to that are

leading to ADHD in your opinion. Well,

again, let's start at home. At home, the

stresses might be that they were

handed over to a daycare center at an

early age, um which turned that amygdala

response on, which turned the stress

regulating part of the brain on too

early. Now, you have that hypervigilant

reaction, and they can't turn it off,

right? Um it could be a divorce

situation. 50% of couples divorce, which

means that divorce is an adversity. You

know, I have a book coming out in a year

about how to divorce and mitigate the

impact of the divorce on the child. But,

no matter what, a divorce is an

adversity on a child and a stress.

Um when parents fight uh dramatically in

the home. If there's uh tremendous

sibling rivalry issues in the home. If

there's the birth of another child, it's

stressful, right? If you have a sibling,

believe it or not, that's a very

stressful thing. If parents are

sensitive about that, then it can be

mitigated, but if parents are

insensitive about the birth of a second

child and the feelings that your first

child may have, that can cause stress.

Moving can cause stress. Illness or

mental illness in a parent can cause

stress. Alcoholism, any kind of

addiction can cause stress. A

grandparent or uncle or aunt or even a

parent getting sick and dying can cause

I mean, there are so many things that

can cause stress, but the point is that

stress can be regulated, but it can only

be regulated if parents are

introspective and self-aware and willing

to look at their part in it. If parents

hand a child over to a psychiatrist and

say, "Fix my child."

Of course, psychiatrist will cooperate

with you and silence your child's pain,

but is that really what you want to be

doing?

Um because in the end, you're just

putting your finger in a dike. You're

putting your finger in a dam.

And eventually, that dam is going to

burst. What do you say to some of the

evidence around there being a link to a

hereditary component? In twin studies,

they found that ADHD is about 74 to 80%

heritable, making one of the most

genetically influenced psychiatric

conditions. Let me tell you what a

different study that will help you to

understand that study.

Which is that