Episode 213

Episode 213 Transcript:

If you're a parent who is really curious and interested in raising kids without punishment, but it still scares you, it still makes you say, how can that be done? You've got to do it. Well, I know Sarah and I have talked about it a lot at times on this podcast, but we always think it's so important to bring different voices on that can speak to you about it in different ways. talked to you about, is punishment even effective? I mean, does it actually work?

Well, what does it end up actually doing according to the research and the science that they've done a lot of studies on this kind of stuff. So we wanted to bring on John Fogle. John Fogle is a parenting researcher. He's a husband. He's a data for who has a following of over 2 million people across Instagram and other platforms. And he really makes neuroscience and psychological research practical and applicable. John is the author of Punish Free Parenting, the brain-based way to raise kids without raising your voice.

He's the host of the Whole Parent podcast and the founder of the Whole Parent Academy, where he helps thousands of normal parents from all over the world ditch power struggles and build relationships that actually work. John partnered with his wife Jess, who's a professional artist for their upcoming children's book. And he'll talk a little bit about that too. It's called Set My Feelings Free. It's going to help parents and kids process feelings and learn emotional regulation exercises in a fun and engaging way. But beyond all that, what John's going to do is talk to you.

about what punishment actually does to our kids and why we want to get rid of it when it comes to raising kids and how it's so important for the future of this generation that we are really intentional about this. So I know you will enjoy his engaging stories and the way in which he explains this. So if you haven't already take a moment to rate, review and comment on the podcast. We always love to hear from you. We'd love to hear how this podcast, this interview with John in particular impacts you and helps you see punishment in a different way.

but it means the world to us when we see those pop up. And I know Sarah and I read those and it really encourages us to keep doing this kind of content, to keep helping parents all throughout the world, to parents in ways that they really, I think, want to, but just don't know how to. So sit back, take a moment to enjoy this conversation with John Fogel.

Kyle Wester (00:00.912)
Hello and welcome to the Art of Raising Humans. I'm Kyle. Hey everyone, I'm Sarah. And you know, Sarah, lately as I've been watching social media, right, there's a few different people we've noticed really blowing up that really get us excited and really get us pumped up because we resonate so much with the message, you know? And what we love about these different creators that are doing this work is I just think they're able to say things sometimes in the ways we would say it, but sometimes in little different ways.

where they can reach parents to kind of like broaden their imagination over what parenting could look like, you know? And I think one of those people who's doing such great work right now, killing it on Instagram, killing it by writing some great books, some children's books, is John Fogle of Whole Brain Parenting. So welcome John Fogle to the podcast.

Jon Fogel (00:48.934)
Yeah, thanks for having me whole parent whole parent. I didn't add the brain in there yet I didn't add the brain in there yet, but we talk all about brains. We talk all about brains It's non-stop, but I didn't want people to get to I actually thought about whole brain parenting But I didn't want people to get too confused with my dear friend Tina and Dan Siegel Tina Bainpain Bryson and Dan Siegel who wrote the whole brain child I'm not them, but Tina did write the forward for my book. So I'm very much in line

Kyle Wester (00:53.046)
I know. Okay, sorry. Okay. Yes.

Kyle Wester (01:07.962)
Yes, yeah. Yeah.

Jon Fogel (01:16.45)
but I didn't want people to get confused, so I just kept it at whole parent.

Kyle Wester (01:19.74)
Well, I want to talk about, know I love the title of your book, Punishment-Free Parenting, which is, and I are very passionate about that. And I know a lot of people hear that and they say, I mean, I know our listeners won't, but I know most people hear that and say, what is he talking about? Like you can't do that. I what was that like for you to do that book, to release it? Was there a lot of pushback on that, on that title and like saying, you can't do parenting without that.

Jon Fogel (01:46.772)
Yeah, you know, the truth is I didn't have as much pushback as I would have liked. I actually wrote the book to kind of be like I wrote the title to be a stirring stirring the pot title where people would really question that. And I think that I underestimated or maybe I overestimated people. And I feel which is I constantly find myself being really surprised by how intelligent people are and how committed people are to parenting.

Kyle Wester (01:51.759)
Okay.

Jon Fogel (02:15.758)
The one place where I find the struggle is actually I kind of regret calling it punishment free parenting, even though I don't regret the concept of punishment free parenting, because I think it actually kind of turns people off. Where the book is written to people who want to punish their kids. The book is written to people and it's not only written to men, the overwhelming majority of people who have read it are women, but I have a higher percentage of men who are engaging with what we can call gentle parenting or authoritative parenting.

Kyle Wester (02:20.572)
Yeah, yeah

Kyle Wester (02:43.183)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jon Fogel (02:44.238)
with me because I speak in a way that doesn't immediately assume that you don't want to punish your kid. And so I sometimes wish that I had called it something else because I think that actually this book is for people who may have been raised with punishment, who may have been raised in a way of like kind of this hard nose, even spanking or definitely timeouts and restriction of privileges and all of those things that

Kyle Wester (03:08.582)
Mm-hmm.

Jon Fogel (03:13.196)
that their parents were probably doing the best that they can or they could at the time. But we look now and we go, the data has really gone ahead of this. And what I've learned in the process as a data for myself is that punishment never works. And so I wrote the title. I stand by the title. But really, only the first chapter of the book is about punishment. The rest of the chapters of the book. And it's 13 chapters total, although the last five are kind of like half chapters.

Really, the rest of the book is about what to do instead. So 12 out of 13 chapters, 11 12ths of the book probably, or even maybe nine tenths of the book, is all about more effective ways to parent, not just why you shouldn't punish your kids.

Kyle Wester (03:56.718)
great. Okay. So I'm thinking we were definitely raised, you know, we were raised with punishment, right? I mean, that was very thoughtful. I feel like my parents were so thoughtful about it. And so if you're thinking that

really worked, right? And so why would I want to give it up? You said it doesn't work. I'd like to hear more about that. I know we talk about it, but I still want to hear you talk about it. I Yes. I want to hear you say it,

Jon Fogel (04:26.732)
Yeah, yeah. Well, that way, if the local news gets ahold of it, they can call me and come after me instead, right? You know, the thing about punishment is that for centuries, we have really thought that if you just hurt somebody enough, they won't want to do the thing that they did before, or they'll do the thing that you wanted them to do in the first place. But what...

Kyle Wester (04:33.468)
That's right,

Jon Fogel (04:55.07)
overwhelming evidence has shown us, whether that's in the prison system, certainly in child development spaces, and with all of this new information that we have, is that punishment is actually a terrible teacher, because punishment usually teaches the kids the wrong lesson. Generally speaking, punishment teaches kids to hide their behavior from their parents, rather than kind of own up to it, to take responsibility for it, because they're afraid of pain and punishment. And punishment teaches kids

Kyle Wester (05:07.452)
Mmm.

Kyle Wester (05:16.881)
Yep.

Jon Fogel (05:24.628)
not what they should do instead, but instead to just try and again, kind of avoid at all cost making the mistake that they made that got them punished. And kids' brains are not very logical. And so it's especially damaging to kids or unhelpful. I won't say damaging. Let's just, let's leave it as ineffective. It's especially ineffective with kids because when a child does something that they're then punished for down the road,

Kyle Wester (05:44.421)
Yeah, yeah.

Jon Fogel (05:52.61)
They often take away the wrong lesson because their brain is practicing what we call heuristics. They're taking shortcuts. And so it might be like they're drawing on the walls with crayon. And then, you know, mom comes in the room and says, what are you doing? I can't believe that you did that. You know, get over here. I'm going to spank you. I'm gonna give you a timeout. I'm gonna take away your crayons. You're never allowed to have them again. What happens in the child's brain when that happens? Like literally we can see this acted out. We're depending on the different type of

Kyle Wester (06:00.379)
Mm.

Jon Fogel (06:21.038)
brain scan technologies that we use, whether it's fMRI or otherwise, is we can see in their brain that all of their learning centers, the logical centers of their brain, shut down when that happens, when they start getting screamed at or hit or punished. Those parts of their brain go offline and the parts responsible for survival come online. And so really the child is not then able to think about, what did I do? Why was that a problem? Why is this an issue? They just start taking shortcuts.

Kyle Wester (06:32.697)
Hmm. Wow.

Jon Fogel (06:50.796)
And this is where when you pull those kids later, when you put them in a therapy session or you have a conversation with them, they'll say things like, well, my mom doesn't like the color green or, you know, I was drawing on the wall in the living room and I should have been drawing on the wall in the closet where she couldn't see. Or, you know, I was using my crayons to draw a picture of a monster, but she only likes flowers. And obviously none of those are the fundamental lesson that we're trying to teach when we're upset with our kid for drawing on the walls, but they're just as likely to take that

Kyle Wester (07:00.4)
Yeah.

Kyle Wester (07:05.564)
Yeah.

Kyle Wester (07:15.866)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jon Fogel (07:20.522)
lesson away because they don't actually understand what's going on and we've just sent their brain into a thoroughly non-adaptive mode. so generally speaking, punishment actually teaches kids the exact wrong lesson that it should be teaching. And that lesson fundamentally is, I don't want to make my parents mad.

Kyle Wester (07:38.62)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, man. That's great. No, I love how you worded that because that's so often the unintended consequences. You think you reach the goal and you don't even understand you didn't reach the goal at all. So it's very good to have that intentional thought. What goal did I reach just now? You know, and many times like you're saying, being therapists, we've been in those therapy sessions with kids and I'll be like, yeah, the kid didn't understand anything you thought they understood. The kid typically takes it.

Jon Fogel (07:51.725)
Ryan.

Jon Fogel (07:56.514)
Totally.

Jon Fogel (08:01.869)
Right.

Jon Fogel (08:06.357)
Absolutely.

Kyle Wester (08:07.598)
I'm a bad kid. I'm a bad kid and don't piss off my parents. That's kind of what it is.

Jon Fogel (08:09.41)
That's right.

That's right. I'm going to avoid this. And this is what we see over and over when parents physically discipline their kids for being mean to other kids at the park. You have that parent who the kid pushes another kid off the slide, and then the parent drags them over to the side and spanks them or whatever. So we're going home and throws them in the back of the car pretty roughly and then drives home. And even, I should say here, punishment. I have adapted this, and I don't say this in the book in so few words, but

Kyle Wester (08:30.384)
Mm-hmm.

Jon Fogel (08:42.008)
Punishment is more how the child experiences the interaction than it is the interaction itself So so understand here that like when we say when I'm saying punishment and I'm giving these extreme examples like physical violence against children Like those it's easy to say okay, but I don't hit my kid but understand that like Even just the tone the punitive tone in your voice can have the same impact what we have seen again in fMRI stance scans is that the anterior

Kyle Wester (08:47.812)
Okay.

Kyle Wester (08:53.904)
Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

Jon Fogel (09:10.538)
Anterior cingulate cortex the part of their brain that feels pain and lights up when they're experiencing pain Also lights up when they feel shame at the hands of their parents So a child who is experiencing shame the the pain Place in their brain lights up the same way as if you just slapped him across the face Does that mean that it's but you know the same and you might as well just hit him because well It's you know, if you're gonna scream at him and hit him. It's all it's all the same to them No, it's not it has far less damaging long-term consequences

Kyle Wester (09:20.454)
Wow.

Jon Fogel (09:39.598)
But it does mean that in the moment they're experiencing that as pain. And so, like, I don't want to say, like, if this is extreme scenario, but back to the at the park, you drag your kid away and whatever you do to punish them, to make them feel bad. What you see is when those. Right. And just in a punitive way, not a conversation, not a hey, let's talk about why that wasn't working. Right. You you send them into their fight or flight. Don't ever do let me see you do that again. You see the kid go back on the playground.

Kyle Wester (09:54.0)
Yeah, you lecture him or whatever. Yeah. Yeah.

Yes.

Jon Fogel (10:09.708)
and almost always go and target the kid that they just hurt again. They target that kid because they blame that kid for them getting in trouble. Well, I pushed you and my mom hit me. So now I'm gonna target you. And the only difference is now they're gonna be looking over their shoulder to make sure that you're not watching the next time they do it and the next time that they do that thing. And so we have all of these scenarios where, you know,

Kyle Wester (10:29.968)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jon Fogel (10:36.078)
parents punish their kids for yelling when the baby is sleeping in the same room as the baby or dropping something on the baby. And then the parent is out of the room in the kitchen or whatever and the baby starts screaming and you see your child just pinched their little sister. But what you don't understand is it's because they felt like there was an unintended consequence to what you did. And it's that you created that environment where pain is a teacher and the child

Kyle Wester (10:40.314)
Yeah. yeah.

Kyle Wester (10:51.43)
Yeah.

Jon Fogel (11:04.863)
understands that and learns that lesson and children who are taught using pain will teach using pain.

Kyle Wester (11:11.228)
Yeah. Yeah. It's good. What about what goes through my head is then, okay. But if I don't punch them, it's just sending the message to them that what they did was fine. Cause all we did is have a conversation about it know, and I didn't make a big deal out of it. Yeah. need it. If you did something, there needs to be some penalty or some something for that. Cause it's almost like you're approving it. I'm condoning the behavior.

Jon Fogel (11:22.893)
Right.

Right.

Jon Fogel (11:33.152)
Right. Right.

I think that this is a really common feature in American society. We have a retributive justice system. And so we think that if you don't hurt somebody for doing something wrong, then they've somehow gotten away with something. This has just not been the experience of the researchers who have done the research into this. We see over and over, if your goal is to get a child to stop doing that thing, shame, punishment, physical violence,

Kyle Wester (11:43.633)
Mm-hmm.

Jon Fogel (12:07.51)
are terrible tools to use to do that. And I think that really it's just like, that is work that we all individually internally have to do is realizing that, hey, what's the real goal here? Is the goal for my child to feel bad or is the goal for my child to not do that thing again? And if your goal is for your child to not do that thing again, you have to get out of this kind of binary of either I make them feel terrible or they're just gonna keep doing it.

And by the way, we do this to ourselves too. Like this is the same part of your brain that says to yourself when you don't do the dishes, I'm such an idiot, I'm such an idiot, I should just do it, what's wrong with me? That same part of your brain is the one that's been conditioned to accept that the only way to change behavior is punishment. And so we punish ourselves, right? Even if nobody else is there to punish us, we punish ourselves because we think that's gonna lead to life change. And what you both know as therapists is no,

Kyle Wester (12:39.1)
Yeah.

Kyle Wester (12:56.675)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Kyle Wester (13:05.638)
Yeah.

Jon Fogel (13:06.68)
There is no amount of self-flagellation that actually leads a person to change. You need to build skills. You need to rethink the thing, the process by which you're making a mistake. Okay, do I need more time to do this? Do I need to do this at a different time of the day? What's the underlying problem that needs to be solved? The other thing I think is that parents, because they have only been taught punitively, they assume that the alternative to punishment

Kyle Wester (13:09.306)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Jon Fogel (13:36.778)
is nothing. They assume that the alternative to punishment is what we call permissiveness in parenting speak, which is basically just my kid does whatever they want all the time. And understand that not only do you not want to do that as a parent, your kid would hate that as a child. Kids don't like running the house. They don't like having permissive parents. Even if you might think they would like it,

Kyle Wester (13:42.308)
Yes, yeah,

Kyle Wester (13:55.316)
Yes, that's good.

Kyle Wester (14:00.14)
Yeah. Yep.

Jon Fogel (14:05.794)
They don't like it. And the reason they don't like it is because kids know inherently in their bones genetically that they need boundaries, that they need authority in their life to help guide them, to help make better decisions. One thing that I say to my nine year old all the time is, hey buddy, I just have an older brain than you. Like I've been through more things than you. So this is not me saying you have to do what I say because I'm your dad. This is me saying you should want to do what I'm saying.

Kyle Wester (14:05.948)
Yeah.

Jon Fogel (14:33.366)
because I love you more than anybody else in the world and my brain is older than yours. And I can see the actual solution here and it's not what you think, right? So I think that is part of it is that we think, okay, well, if we don't punish, then the alternative is permissiveness. The truth is the alternative to punishment is in most cases letting kids experience the consequences of their own actions. And I think that that's really undersold.

Kyle Wester (14:33.434)
Yeah, yeah.

Kyle Wester (14:39.222)
Yes!

Kyle Wester (14:58.245)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jon Fogel (15:01.492)
as a discipline strategy. Like, reason why I hate the term gentle parenting, even though I defend it online because most people don't understand what it is, the reason why I don't like the term is because it leads parents to think that their children should have gentle childhoods. I think the exact opposite. I think the childhood should be full of conflict for kids. It should be full of suffering, to be honest. Like,

Kyle Wester (15:01.924)
Yeah,

Kyle Wester (15:22.65)
Yes, yes.

Jon Fogel (15:27.34)
That is part of life. Like, if you don't teach your kids when they're safe in your home how to suffer effectively, like how to be resilient and get back up on the horse, like you're failing them in a respect. So I think it's great to let kids suffer the consequences of their own actions. The problem is most parents aren't willing to do that. And so most parents want to intervene because letting your kid experience another kid not wanting to play with them because they just pushed them.

Kyle Wester (15:32.72)
Yeah. Yeah, yes, yes.

Kyle Wester (15:42.043)
Yeah.

Kyle Wester (15:47.93)
Yeah.

Kyle Wester (15:56.196)
Yeah. Yep.

Jon Fogel (15:57.662)
is social ostracization for you as a parent. And so now you're bringing in performative, like, I'm gonna be so mad at you for not sharing that because ultimately you don't care about what your kid just did. You care about all the other parents watching you and going, are you gonna do something about this? And so I think so much of parenting is just like stepping back and it's not permissiveness. Stepping back and saying, hey, what's the natural outcome of this?

Kyle Wester (16:01.69)
Yeah.

Kyle Wester (16:08.176)
Yeah.

Kyle Wester (16:14.032)
Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

Kyle Wester (16:20.678)
Hmm.

Jon Fogel (16:27.018)
And I'll tell you, the amount of times that I have had to sit with my kid as they've experienced something really, really hard, like that is so much harder than just punishing them. Like it's like you have to be so emotionally attuned, so strong, so regulated to be able so patient. My kid, the other like a month ago, he was he's in Taekwondo. He failed his he failed to get a stripe on his belt.

Kyle Wester (16:35.472)
Yep. Yep.

Kyle Wester (16:39.568)
Yeah, yep.

Kyle Wester (16:43.236)
Yeah, so patient. like suffer with them. Yeah.

Kyle Wester (16:52.721)
Mmm.

Jon Fogel (16:56.514)
that would have allowed him to go on to the next belt. He still had time. He was gonna be able to retake that part. And it wasn't like he was gonna get left behind, but it was very disappointing. And I could have been like, that's cause you need to practice harder. And I'm disappointed that you didn't get this and you need to get in the car. we, know, this is your fault. And I could have punished him for that. I don't think most parents would, but I think I could, right? The other thing I could have done was just been like, let's go get ice cream.

Kyle Wester (16:57.212)
Yeah.

Kyle Wester (17:10.716)
That's right. You haven't been doing enough. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Kyle Wester (17:22.96)
Yeah.

Jon Fogel (17:23.894)
Right? Like, let's avoid this deep ache that comes from failure. The hardest part of what I'm trying to help parents to do is to not default to punishment, yes, but also to sit in the failure. He sat on my lap for 10 minutes and cried. For 10 solid minutes and cried that he didn't know that you could fail, that he didn't know that the teacher would let him fail, that he didn't know that his brother

Kyle Wester (17:26.18)
Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Kyle Wester (17:37.98)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kyle Wester (17:43.802)
Yeah.

Jon Fogel (17:50.838)
on the same day would get something that he didn't get and it's not fair and all these other things. And I just sat in it. And like, what a powerful teacher. I didn't need to punish him or do anything, but I did need to let him experience the consequences without bailing him out. And so that is so much of life is actually like being way stronger than we have been conditioned to be. And much of it is because we are.

Kyle Wester (17:53.862)
Yeah.

Jon Fogel (18:18.198)
Every time we had emotions when we were kids, we were punished. So most of us aren't really used to sitting in emotions. And that's another big piece of my work.

Kyle Wester (18:20.954)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, so I'd love to hear from you. Did you go into parenting before you had the four kids? Were you already set on this path or what was it that convinced you? Cause I know Sarah and I had some not only great conversations, but there were some really pivotal moments.

where I got to learn from Dr. Becky Bailey and see what it did to the brain and it blew me away. And I had to tell Sarah, hey, this is a path we're taking, because I do not want our kids to experience this, right? Or have the same kind of pathway set out for them that my parents had in the case of fear and shame and all that stuff. But what was it for you that convinced you to go down this path?

Jon Fogel (19:08.502)
Yeah, mean, it was a conglomeration of factors that all kind of intersected at the same time. So I did not start parenting this way. When I got to parenting, when I had kids, like my first kid, the first pancake never looks as good as the rest, Because the pan's not warmed up yet, and you just, you know what I mean? But my kid...

Kyle Wester (19:17.296)
okay.

Kyle Wester (19:27.706)
That's right. Yes. Yes.

Jon Fogel (19:36.75)
He was also a tricky first pancake already. So he had a lot of the stuff where like, you can call it explosive behaviors, you can call it highly sensitive or deeply feeling, like, it depends on which author and influencer you wanna follow this week and how they describe these kids. He could, he probably, like, he...

Kyle Wester (19:39.576)
Yeah.

Kyle Wester (19:47.492)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's right. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Jon Fogel (20:02.28)
He has never been in environments where a diagnosis would have served us, but he probably could be diagnosed with some three or four letter acronyms. So like this is the kid that I have, is the truth, right? And so the kid that I have is not going to tolerate bad parenting. That was the first thing.

Kyle Wester (20:07.174)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kyle Wester (20:12.631)
Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

Kyle Wester (20:22.876)
That's how our daughter was too. Our first was just like that, guess.

Jon Fogel (20:28.61)
And I think there's no teacher-like experience. so he was not gonna tolerate, and this is often what I help people to understand about in my research. The amazing thing that's happened after the book came out is I wrote the book to parents of neurotypical children, knowing full well that the overwhelming majority of people who were gonna read it were not neurotypical parents of neurotypical children. I didn't at that time, I was not even studying for it yet, my PhD in developmental psych. And so I wasn't gonna be,

Kyle Wester (20:30.874)
Yes.

Jon Fogel (20:58.318)
Get handing out advice to parents of ADHD kids. It just was or ASD kids like it would it would have just been irresponsible Because I try and follow the data that said I published the book and therapists and social workers and school counselors and all these people who work with the populations of kids who are ADHD and ASD and neurodiverse Picked up the book and went. shoot

Kyle Wester (21:01.776)
Yeah.

Kyle Wester (21:07.057)
Yeah, yeah.

Jon Fogel (21:23.308)
you're just teaching neurotypical people to do exactly what we tell them to do with ADHD and ASD kids. And so really that led me to a pretty profound belief, which has not yet been debunked in my PhD program. And I can come back on the podcast when it is and tell you that I was wrong. But up until this point, from what I can understand, basically ADHD and ASD kids, the only way an ODD and PDA, the only reason, the only difference between parenting them and neurotypical kids.

Kyle Wester (21:28.836)
Yes, yes.

Kyle Wester (21:34.842)
Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Jon Fogel (21:52.438)
is that neurotypical kids can generally speaking withstand worse parenting. can tolerate worse parenting and they will kind of just deal with their own stuff. so you can, right, right, right, like you can punish them and you can hit them and you can do all this stuff. And ultimately what that means is that they weren't part of a vulnerable population if they wind up being socially well adjusted and not.

Kyle Wester (21:56.988)
Mmm, that's good. That's good. Wow. Yeah. And turn out just fine. Turn out just fine with really bad parenting. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Mmm.

Kyle Wester (22:21.724)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Jon Fogel (22:21.76)
antisocial monsters. But the same things done to a different kid could have led to catastrophic, catastrophic harm. so that was one piece was that I had a kid who refused to be parroted poorly, like just point blank. The second thing is that I was being trained as a foster parent at the time. all of basically

Kyle Wester (22:30.832)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kyle Wester (22:40.592)
Yes.

Kyle Wester (22:45.52)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jon Fogel (22:48.862)
She came out the foster care trainer came out. She had fostered 30 plus kids and she said the exact thing that I just said She said these kids cannot tolerate poor parenting that they have received so much trauma They've experienced so much harm early in life Foundationally in their childhood that if you parent them poorly it will go bad Like if you punish them if you hit them if you isolate them, it will be catastrophic

Kyle Wester (22:59.152)
Wow.

Kyle Wester (23:02.544)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jon Fogel (23:16.568)
But what was interesting is that she didn't say, these kids are different because the things that work on other kids don't work on them. She said, none of that stuff really works, but most kids can just get on and get by because kids are anti-fragile. And I was really blown away by that idea that, whoa, hang on, my punishment is not actually helping them. It's a release of emotional energy for me.

Kyle Wester (23:33.818)
Yes.

Yeah, yeah, powerful, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Jon Fogel (23:45.322)
And my kid is learning the lesson in spite of my punishment and not because of my punishment. So that was new for me. And then I happened to be getting a master's degree at the time, which included some counseling courses, master's degree level counseling courses. And so I learned how to research counseling. And I just started consuming educational resources and papers on this stuff and motivation and Albert Bandura and observational learning theory.

Kyle Wester (23:49.476)
Yes.

Kyle Wester (23:57.637)
Yeah.

Jon Fogel (24:12.308)
and Stanley Milgram and like all of these different educational psychologists. mean, beyond just like you always study Freud and you always study Piaget, but I was going like I was going into the weeds, right? I was getting into these people who nobody researches, but who are responding to a lot of these deep developmental theories on learning and understanding. And then also just looking historically, where does this stuff come from? I'm a history nerd.

Kyle Wester (24:21.306)
Yeah, of course.

Jon Fogel (24:40.514)
You know, I can go toe to toe with people about the first century, you know, Near East. Like we can talk about the world that that was a part of. And what was very clear is that most of these societies until European Western colonialization did not do the stuff that we're doing to kids. And so I went, my gosh, so now I have historical anthropological evidence.

Kyle Wester (24:40.87)
Yeah, yeah, yes. Yeah.

Kyle Wester (25:00.97)
wow, yeah.

Kyle Wester (25:07.067)
Yeah.

Jon Fogel (25:07.254)
I have psychological evidence, I neuroscientific evidence, we literally see the brain scans that shows this, we have developmental psychological evidence. So then why the heck are we punishing our kids? And the answer is, don't know, because we always have. And no one in the whole time that I was researching, I could not find a single person that found that punishment was effective discipline. I found people who argued that punishment was not as harmful as other people thought it was.

Kyle Wester (25:21.278)
Mmm, yeah.

Kyle Wester (25:29.787)
Yeah.

Kyle Wester (25:34.074)
Yes, yes. Yeah. That's good.

Jon Fogel (25:35.242)
Essentially, there are populations and pockets of people who say kids are so resilient that you can punish them and they'll be fine. But nobody's sitting around and saying, well, punishment's a great way to teach people. Nobody said that. And really, all of that was built on a cultural mythology that looked at like, well, justice looks like hurting the person who hurt you, an eye for an eye. And I also happen to be a pastor. And so I, you know,

Kyle Wester (25:42.619)
Yeah, yeah.

Kyle Wester (25:56.762)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jon Fogel (26:03.534)
As soon as I realized that the world said an eye for an eye, there was this voice of this rabbi that I knew who said, you have heard it said an eye for an eye, but I say to you. And I started to really pause and go, basically every... And I started to get into Muslim theology around parenting. got into first century Jewish theology, but then even modern Jewish theology on parenting. surprise, surprise. Basically every single major world religion, once again...

Kyle Wester (26:08.4)
Yeah.

Yeah, yep.

Kyle Wester (26:22.618)
Yeah, yep, yep, yep, yep.

Yeah.

Jon Fogel (26:33.72)
taught teaches that you should not punish your kids, which includes Christianity if you want to go there. But the Bible is unequivocally clear that you shouldn't punish your kids. Save one book. there is a book in the Bible that goes in a dark way. there's also books in the Bible that talk about some pretty horrible stuff. So I was pretty comfortable with that as well.

Kyle Wester (26:37.636)
Wow. Yes, yes.

Kyle Wester (26:56.987)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can relate to your story a little bit. think I got thrown into this accidentally, this other thought, because I was working with kids who had all those things and had been through all these hard things and I couldn't just use those regular approaches. And I remember this feeling of, wow, this is really amazing that this works because I didn't think it would work. It wasn't what I was used to. And I think there's this piece of parenting where

It goes, okay, maybe I'll buy into, okay, maybe I'll try letting go of punishment. But then there's this whole transition of them. What do I pick up? You know, it's kind of scary because you're, you're, thinking, my, I'm going to raise these horrible kids. And, and then you let it go. And that's where you fall into the, you know, gentle parenting, you know, permissive parenting and yeah. And you fall into that. Cause you're like, how do I pick that up? So I just like to hear your thoughts on that. Cause I know.

Jon Fogel (27:44.878)
permissiveness.

Kyle Wester (27:52.06)
So it sounds like you two had to lay something down and move into picking something else up. And that little in between there is kind of a scary time. Yeah. And in certain times.

Jon Fogel (27:55.191)
Yeah.

Jon Fogel (28:00.674)
Totally. So I'm going to give you the pitch for my book that I always give, which is similar to the Bible, not to compare my own book to the Bible, but similar to the Bible. If you're skeptical, I don't recommend that you start at the beginning. Most people talk to me, so where do I start reading the Bible? say, if you're a skeptic, don't start at the beginning. It's not going to help. So actually, the place that I tell parents to start with my book.

Kyle Wester (28:05.168)
Yeah, yeah.

Kyle Wester (28:20.56)
you

Kyle Wester (28:24.549)
Yeah.

Jon Fogel (28:30.414)
if you really want easy and quick wins, because I think that you have to experience the value before you understand and are willing to go on the journey. I wanna show you, and most of my social media is actually not great parenting advice. It's mildly good parenting advice. The overwhelming majority of videos that I make, I'm not saying that I disagree with them, I'm saying they're about 8 % of the picture.

Kyle Wester (28:49.081)
Yes.

Jon Fogel (28:56.206)
Like basically they're just teaching you what to do in the moment so that you trust me enough to pick up my book. So what I would say to people is go to chapter nine. Chapter nine begins what I call the whole parent method. It's those half chapters at the end of my book. And chapter nine, 10, 11, 12, and 13 are a five step method that you can employ in your life, no frills, you can read the whole thing in one sitting. Like literally you sit down with your partner tonight, pick up the book, get it on an ebook or whatever.

Kyle Wester (28:56.44)
Yes. Yes. It's good. That's good. Yes. Yes.

Kyle Wester (29:08.42)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jon Fogel (29:25.198)
Get an audio book, I'll read it to you. and sit down, right? Sit down, go to chapter nine, and just start there. Do that. Do the whole whole parent method. And then read the rest of the book, knowing that that is just giving you the foundational basis for what I'm saying from chapters nine through 13. But chapters nine through 13 walk you through it practically. The problem that most parents have

Kyle Wester (29:27.44)
Sweet.

Jon Fogel (29:53.174)
is that they get so into the weeds and the learning phase of being a better parent that they never get to the practicality to see this stuff actually working. So literally the what to do instead is way more important. So you just go to chapter nine and I start with wiring, which is understanding what's going on in your brain, what's going on in their brain. And that means you probably don't want to discipline a kid who's melting down, right? Actually you never do. Like if they're screaming and shouting and carrying on,

Kyle Wester (30:00.996)
Yeah.

Kyle Wester (30:05.532)
Okay.

Kyle Wester (30:12.016)
Yeah, yeah.

Kyle Wester (30:17.414)
Yeah, yep, yep.

Jon Fogel (30:20.782)
So worst time to teach them anything. I mean, if you love repeating yourself over and over and beating your head against a wall, be my guest. It will be luxurious for you because that's what disciplining a screaming toddler is, right? You don't want that. I can help you there too. So wiring, one, what's going on in your brain, what's going on in their brain. Then honoring, which is just about validation. By the way, this is the acronym WHLE, whole, for whole parent method. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

Kyle Wester (30:25.134)
Right. do it. Yeah. Yeah.

Kyle Wester (30:46.496)
yes, that's right. Yes. love that.

Jon Fogel (30:49.046)
Honoring, so it's just validating their emotions. Very high you you can yeah. Yeah Although although I will say I don't know I I have a sneaky after knowing them I have I have a sneaking suspicion that it was Tina and her husband Scott who come up with all the acronyms but but but that's a but yeah Yeah, so here the the epic the epic lore is that I I talked to Scott

Kyle Wester (30:51.642)
very Dr. Segal of you very Dr. Segal do you use an acronym?

Jon Fogel (31:17.742)
Bryson more than I talked to anybody else in the world. I I text this guy about baseball all summer long I just text him about baseball every day So so so anyway, yeah knowing him. I'm like, oh, yeah, he probably came with you So so wh honoring oh, this is the one that people don't know outline the boundary and This is where you're gonna deploy consequences and they're not threats. They're promises, right? This is what happens. This is what's gonna happen in response. So outline the boundary deploy those consequences if necessary then

Kyle Wester (31:17.904)
Yeah, yeah. That's awesome. That's awesome.

Kyle Wester (31:33.754)
Yeah, yeah, yep, yep.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kyle Wester (31:44.112)
Yeah.

Jon Fogel (31:48.314)
L lead them out. I actually wrote a children's book all about L just by itself because it's so important. This is the and actually if you want to place if you're not willing to start with chapter nine, just start with chapter 11 because L leading them out. That's probably going to be where you go. and that is what happens overwhelmingly on my social social people find me because I give them an L tool and they go, whoa, this guy just hacked my kid's What?

Kyle Wester (32:00.942)
Yeah, yeah.

Kyle Wester (32:14.01)
Yes.

Jon Fogel (32:15.02)
What just happened? Why did an Instagram video just get me out of Target without a screaming match? This is insane. So L, lead them out. And then E is actually the last chapter in the book is by far the most important. it's, which is the word, every author does it. We put our last chapter as the most important chapter. Why do we do it? Nobody ever gets there. But read E, don't skip it, because emphasize is called empowering for the future. And empowering for the future with E.

Kyle Wester (32:19.716)
That's right! Yes.

Jon Fogel (32:42.958)
is all about how actually the overwhelming majority of discipline, I would argue 90 % of discipline is not done in the moment. 90 % of discipline is done after the fact, where you are empowering your kid for how they're going to behave for the rest of their life. And by the way, empowering for the future is not about empowering them to get out the door tomorrow morning without a power struggle. Empowering for the future is about what your relationship and their relationship with themselves looks like at 30 and 60 and 90 years old.

Kyle Wester (32:51.676)
Yep. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Kyle Wester (33:03.79)
Yes. Yeah.

Jon Fogel (33:12.246)
And so if you actually take that and you go, I actually care about my kid, not just, you know, learning how to potty train, not just putting their shoes on tomorrow morning without screaming at me, not just sitting at the dinner table when they're nine and not, you know, trying to go off and be on their iPad, not just getting into Harvard at 18, but actually what do I care about when my kid's 40? Then actually 90 % of the good parenting that you're gonna do is playful and it's thoughtful.

Kyle Wester (33:30.456)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes.

Jon Fogel (33:40.908)
and that happens after the fact. that's what I would say is read from there. And if you really, if you want to go even, if you want to go even more practical, I don't know when this episode is going to come out. Do you guys know? Okay. In just a few weeks. So hopefully by the time the episode comes out, my children's book is going to be back in stock. We sold out 100 % of the stock nationwide. And I'm going tell you why. So we sold out 100 % of the stock nationwide by 9 a.m. on launch day.

Kyle Wester (33:45.498)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kyle Wester (33:51.772)
Yeah, in just a few weeks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yes, we saw that. Yep. We saw that. Yep. Yep.

Jon Fogel (34:09.122)
So every single copy of the book was gone by 9 a.m. on launch day. And the reason is because this book, not only is it the most beautiful book I've ever seen, My Wife is the Illustrator, not only is it set to a song and so it's gonna be fun for you to sing with your kids and they're gonna ask for it over and over, every single the book is just a bunch of brain hacks that you can use when your child's actively melting down that can pull them out of the dysregulation. So if you're like, okay,

Kyle Wester (34:09.254)
Man, yeah. Wow, that's awesome.

Kyle Wester (34:20.176)
Yes.

Jon Fogel (34:36.64)
I actually don't believe that's punishment free parenting stuff or I actually don't know if this is going to work for my kid or whatever. The better thing actually is you can pick up a 30 page children's book. It's cheaper than my book. Right. You pick it up at Amazon or Barnes and Noble or bookshop.org when it's back in stock, which hopefully by the time the episode comes out, it will be. You pick that book up when it's delivered two days later, practice those tools with your kid. Sing that song to your kid that's laid out in the book. It's Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. You already know the song.

Kyle Wester (34:39.484)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kyle Wester (34:56.144)
you

Jon Fogel (35:06.102)
I already did the homework for you, right? Like just read those to your kids, sing it with your kids. And then what's you're going to have happen is you're going to be in a school pickup line or you're going to be fighting over getting out the door in the morning and you're going to sing one of these songs and they're going to play the color game or they're going to do one of these other things and they're going to go, they're going to become immediately compliant in much, not compliant, I should say bad word, but they're going to become immediately cooperative.

Kyle Wester (35:31.504)
Yeah, Yes, yeah, Yes.

Jon Fogel (35:33.676)
And once they become cooperative, you're gonna be able to work with them and you're gonna go, wow, I could have just screened them for 15 minutes and then they're a puddle in the car and then I'm sending them off to school and there's tear streaks and they're just like, have a good day at school. You can either do that or you can just make your life 100 times easier. So you read the children's book and you go, okay, now I wanna go and now I wanna do the rest and you read the rest.

Kyle Wester (35:40.444)
That's right, yes, yes.

Yes, yes, yes. That's right, see you later, honey. Yes.

Kyle Wester (35:54.544)
Well, John, yeah.

Kyle Wester (36:00.528)
John, that's such a great way to end this episode. So where can they find you? Give them all the ways they can connect with what John Fogel's up to.

Jon Fogel (36:07.724)
Yeah, you can find me on all of the social medias at WholeParent. I think I'm on all of them at this point. I'm trying to build my YouTube, so go support me over there. I have a podcast. That's good. I have a podcast that comes out weekly, usually on Tuesdays, sometimes on Thursdays if I'm late, where I interview people. It's very similar to this podcast, but I also do solo episodes where I talk about a lot of this stuff. You can obviously find my books. They're called Set My Feelings Free. That's the children's book.

Kyle Wester (36:16.218)
Yes. Hey, we watch it. We watch it, John. Yeah, we watch it on there. Yeah.

Kyle Wester (36:26.31)
Yeah.

Jon Fogel (36:36.406)
available everywhere when you're listening to this hopefully or punishment free parenting, which thankfully still has stock almost everywhere. Punishment free parenting, the brain based way to raise kids without raising your voice. And I have a website too, but you probably don't even need to know that. I have a membership called the Parent Lab. I have a membership called the Parent Lab where parents can watch all my courses. It's just a flat monthly fee. So yeah, lots of different ways to connect.

Kyle Wester (36:39.473)
Yes, yes.

Kyle Wester (36:51.588)
Yes. Yes. Yep. Yep. Yep.

Yeah, yeah, it's awesome. Well, John, we thank you so much, one, for your voice and just helping parents all throughout the world, but also you just taking the time. And I know you're busy taking the time to come on here and share this wisdom with our listeners. Okay. So thank you so much for coming on today.

Jon Fogel (37:12.652)
Love it. Thank you for having me.