Embracing Dad Mode: Tips to Help Dads Connect with Their Kids with guest Tal Eyre

About this Episode

On this episode of the Brainy Moms podcast, Tal Eyre joins Dr. Amy and Sandy to talk about how dads can better connect with their kids. Tal is an expert in positive psychology and is the author of the book, “Dad Mode: 25 Ways to Connect With Your Children” and he talks about the difference between “dealing with” and “feeling with” when it comes to parenting, as well as how to address your own childhood baggage through “shadow work” to be a better parent. Hear about the different types of parents and why most psychologists are in agreement about the best type to raise happy and well-adjusted children. Find out more about why apologizing is important, what “capitalization” is and how to respond to maximize feelings of engagement with your kids, and why being a connected partner and parent has been shown to be a defining factor in the health and happiness of men.

About Tal Eyre

Tal has made contributions in athletics, humanitarian work, academics and international business. He has a Master of Applied Positive Psychology degree from the University of Pennsylvania, applying his learnings with his family as a Swiss-based leader in global business development. He’s the author of the new book, “Dad Mode: 25 Ways to Connect With Your Children.”

Connect with Tal

Website: www.TalEyre.com

Instagram: @TalEyre

Book: https://www.amazon.com/Dad-Mode-Ways-Connect-Child/dp/1641709111/

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Read the transcript for this episode:

DR. AMY:   Hi, smart moms and dads. Welcome to another episode of The Brainy Moms podcast brought to you today by LearningRx Brain Training Centers. I’m your host, Dr. Amy Moore. I am joined by my co-host, Sandy Zamalis, and we are excited to welcome our guest today. Tal Eyer. Tal is the author of the book, “Dad Mode; 25 Ways to Connect With Your Children.”

Combining his master’s degree in applied positive psychology with his diverse experience in athletics, humanitarian work, academics, and international business, Tal has developed a collection of practical strategies for building and maintaining warm connections with our children. And he is here today to share some of those insights.

Welcome, Tal.

TAL: So glad to be here. Thank you so much for having me, Dr. DR. AMY and Sandy.

SANDY: Hi, Tal. We always love to get started at the very beginning of our episode by having our guests share how they got interested in their topic that they’re going to discuss. But I want you to talk about, you are the first guest we’ve ever had that’s actually been on the “Oprah” show.  I would like to hear a little bit more about that and how that segue-wayed you into the topic we’re going to talk about today, which is dad mode. How to make better connections as a dad. So let’s start there.

TAL: Let’s do that. As I think it’s a great way to start. In fact, that’s the way I started my book and the introduction. So it was in 1993.  When my parents received a very strange phone call, Sandy, they said they got a phone call and it said, “This is the Oprah Winfrey show. And we’ve read your most recent book.” My parents are authors of parenting books. They’ve written over 50 books, most of them on the topic of parenting. And this one was called, “Teaching Your Children Values.” Somehow the Oprah show had found this book and they called and they said, “We want to fly our whole family out. We want you to all be on the show that we’re going to dedicate an entire show to this book. Oprah loves it. And we want to talk about the different, different things.” So, after a few minutes, they figured out it wasn’t a joke because they thought it probably was a joke at the beginning. And the “Oprah “team came out and filmed us at our house. And then, we went to, we went to Chicago and we got to stay in a super nice hotel. Like our family grew up going to motels, cramming into two rooms, trying to sleep in the bathtub or whatever, you know/ And we got nine kids in the family. Right? So, and then, you can imagine how excited we were to go and have our own, our own nice hotel experience. So that’s a big highlight for us. And then, we went to the show and they were amazing to work with us. They did the whole show on us and I got to introduce myself. I was 14 years old. I said, I played basketball and then about halfway through the show, Oprah starts talking about how to talk to your children about sex. Then I’m getting nervous. I’m there, “Please, please, please. Do not call on me. Do not say,” and she, she turns right to me and she says, “Talmadge, you know, what was it like for you when your parents told you about sex?” I’m a 14-year-old boy. All right. I’m right in the middle of puberty and I don’t know what to say, but I just said what first came to my mind. I said, “You know, I thought it was very interesting.” And luckily the audience, the live audience, bailed me out because they busted out laughing. And I was saved by my parents who jumped in and said, “You know, it was an amazing experience” and they kind of carried on the discussion from there. So that was my few seconds of, of fame on the “Oprah” show. A couple of weeks later, it actually aired. And it went straight to number one on the New York Times bestseller list. It was a really great show. And, just, we were actually in Las Vegas during that time when it aired and we were at one of the casinos because I was playing in a basketball tournament and we heard this amazing buffet lunch was at this casino. And we’re waiting in line and back in those days, you actually waited in line right through the casino. So imagine this family of, you know, all these kids and we’re all here in these, these “ding, ding, dings” of the slot machines. We said, “Mom and Dad, please, can we please just throw a couple quarters in please?” And after, after 15 minutes of this, they relented and they said, “Okay.” So they let us actually throw a couple quarters in and my brother won $40. And so we were all excited and right around that time, we’ll always remember this, because three ladies walked up to us and they said, “Aren’t you the family that we just saw on the Oprah show talking about family values?” So there we were in Vegas.

DR. AMY: And you’re gambling in Vegas!

TAL: Gambling in Vegas. I love, I love that story because it’s exactly what our family is all about. We’re not perfect at all. We have so many problems. We even gamble in Vegas. But basically it got me excited. It lit a fire in me to see how amazing this world is of parenting and how you can help people in so many ways. I went around and helped them with their book tours and things like that. And I decided I wanted to do this as well. So I threw myself in the ring. I’ve written my first book. This is “Dad Mode” and it’s mainly for dads. So that’s my long answer to your question about the “Oprah” show. 

DR. AMY: It was a fun story to read for sure.So did they, did those ladies look at you guys with some judgment or did it just go right over their heads? They were just happy to recognize you. 

TAL: Yeah. I think that they were just happy to recognize us. I mean, they were in the casino as well. They probably thought it was a little bit weird that we were, you know, excited about the slot machine.

SANDY: It’s like a celebrity sighting, right? They saw someone on TV and they’re right there. 

TAL: Yes. Yes. So we just, we just had a blast with that story because you can’t, you can’t write those kinds of stories. That was amazing. Yeah. All right.

DR. AMY: So in your book, “Dad Mode,” you’ve written about 25 ways to connect with your children.And obviously we are not going to walk through 25 ways today to connect with your kids because then our listeners wouldn’t need to buy your book. But we would like for you to pick a few and just to highlight some for your listeners. And so you talk about the importance of self-connection first. And so what does that mean and why is it important?

TAL: Yeah. So ,Dr. DR. AMY, I feel like going through this process of writing this book, I wanted to give the reins to the dads who are reading it. I had the dads in mind when I was writing this book. And I thought, you know, if I’m like any of these dads, I like to kind of figure stuff out on my own. I like to kind of figure out how to parent on my own, but I don’t mind getting some support or some ideas here and there. So what I did is I put in my favorite, my best, greatest hits of the things that I learned in positive psychology, as well as just in my experience with my family and with my parents and that’s what came together.And the first thing that I wanted dads to think about is our connection with other people can only be as deep as our connection with ourselves. And this is actually something that Brené Brown taught me in the book, “Atlas of the Heart.” And I love that because connection is the theme of the book. All 25 of these ways are ways for dads to create a warm connection with their kids. And the biggest, most important thing is to be able to say, “Hey, I actually have been working on myself and my own connections as a dad. And I want to tell you about some of the things that I’ve learned about my childhood.” And maybe even say to the kids, “You know what? Some of the things my parents did with me, they weren’t the best. And I’m going to try and change those things. And I’m going to try and blaze a new trail with you and figure out how to do something new with you.”And I think that our listeners can understand that because every parent is not perfect. And we’ve had different difficulties in different areas. And some parents didn’t know how to apologize.Other parents were too strict. Other parents were too lenient. But how do we find that balance? And that’s what the book is all about. 

DR. AMY: So you talked a little bit about them doing shadow work, right? So what does that mean?

TAL: Yeah. So. I actually am a big fan, Sandy and Dr. DR. AMY of Carl Jung. Carl Jung, he actually did, he practiced up the street from where I’ve lived now in Zurich on the Lake of Zurich. And he was big on, “What are you going to do in the first half of your life? And what are you going to do in your second half of life?” And in the second half of life for him, it’s all about looking at yourself and looking at those shadows of yourself that maybe you didn’t dare to look at in the first half of life, or you didn’t want to look at. And I love this Aesop’s fable actually that talks about this. It basically says every man carries two bags; one in the front and one behind. The one in the front is full of their neighbor’s faults and the one in the back is full of their own faults. And so it is that we’re very good at seeing our neighbor’s faults, but very bad at seeing our own faults. Basically, what shadow work is, is looking at that bag behind us and saying, actually inviting it in, basically saying like, “You know what? I actually want to know what makes me difficult to live with. I want to know where I’m struggling as a dad.” And if we invite that instead of getting defensive about it, which is a whole other difficult thing to do. But if we can figure out how to say, “I want this. I find joy in finding out where I’ve been wrong,” then we’re doing the shadow work and we’re figuring out how to be a better parent, how to be a better partner, how to figure things out. And I really challenged dads right at the beginning of the book to do this hard work, of shadow work. 

DR. AMY: And do you notice men being able to find joy in this process or is it a struggle?

TAL: It’s mainly a struggle. And that’s why I kind of packed it that way, Dr. DR. AMY, because I feel like if you’re not really looking to try and do it and you actually have to have a talk with your partner and say, “Look, some days I’m not going to be ready for this. Like, please don’t throw these things at me. I’m sensitive about certain things, you know, but I do want to improve.” One of my favorite psychologists out there is Daniel Kahneman, who just passed away. You guys probably know this, but he wrote, “Thinking Fast and Slow.” And he’s such an amazing guy. And he was known among his friends to be someone who cultivated this ability of the joy of being wrong. I mean, this is one of the, this is a, this is Nobel Prize winner. This is an amazing guy, and he would look for reasons his theories and his work was wrong. And that is something that we I think we can all follow. 

SANDY: In your book, you talk about lots of different ways of connecting, connecting with your kids, reconnecting with your kids, if you blow it, connecting with yourself, but you also talk about co-parenting. So I’m going to highlight there. We hear that word all the time, but it’s often associated with divorce and trying to figure out how to co-parent in different homes, but you don’t really mean it that way. You’re talking about it—I believe more in a connection with your spouse kind of way. And there’s a lot of talk right now about kind of reframing the parenting dynamic at home. So let’s go there. What do you mean by co- parenting and building that connection?

TAL: Yeah, Sandy, thanks for that question. I feel like, you know, I’m a big basketball fan and I grew up, I grew up loving the Utah Jazz and I loved actually Karl Malone and John Stockton. And your listeners may or may not know about them, but maybe they’re partners will. Basically, John Stockton and Karl Malone were this amazing duo where they were both very different players, but they’re both, one was a point guy, one was a power forward. But they both contributed to really amazing basketball and they’ve made it to the finals against Michael Jordan twice. Just barely lost, which is a little bit of a heartbreaker for me.But basically, they won one year, they won a co-MVP award. Usually it’s just an MVP award, but it was for the all-star game and it was, they both played so well that it was a co-MVP award.

What I’m trying to do is change this “co” word and get it out of this, this thing. And maybe, you know, if people are divorced or whatever, that’s a nice name, but I think it’s also very helpful in a married relationship or in a partnership, that’s a long-term partnership, because you’re both co-parenting. You’re both giving a hundred percent in different ways. And I think that if parents have a weekly meeting, this is what I get to, I say, just have a weekly meeting. Sometimes it’ll be five minutes. Sometimes it’ll be 15. Sometimes it’ll be an hour. But if you have this meeting, coordinate the schedule, coordinate who’s going to be doing what and how you can reconnect with your kid, your children, you’re going to be so much better off. How many meetings do we have for work? We have way too many meetings. We don’t have hardly any meetings at home. Make them fun, make them fast, make them easy. But also I think they’re necessary.

SANDY: And that builds connection with your spouse too, because that’s a lot of times if a wife or mom is going to complain, it’s going to be that they’re bearing too much of the burden. So having a weekly meeting where you can delegate certain things, only ends up helping that marital relationship as well.

TAL: Exactly. Sandy, thanks for saying that. You know, the next book I want to write is actually about relationships, parent relationships, because that’s such a difficult one and they’re all different. And, you know, it’s been a challenge for us and I think, I think all the listeners can probably understand what I’m saying there, because you’re trying to parent, you’ve got these ways that you grew up parenting.Then your spouse had different ways of parenting and you’re trying to kind of mesh the two and it’s not easy. So I think that there’s a whole lot more to be done in that area, but start with a meeting. Yep.

DR. AMY: All right. So what is your advice then for single parents? 

TAL: Yeah, you know, I’ve, I’m actually doing a podcast as well and I’ve interviewed, I can’t believe how many of the people I’ve interviewed are separated or divorced. And I think that it becomes even more important for them to feel like they have a community around them that can help them. So I say “it takes a village.” It does if you’re married or if you’re not married, but to get the help of parents, to get the help of friends and neighbors and to find trusted people that can help you to gain that connection with your kids and help them feel connected and secure in their relationships is super important to me.

DR. AMY: So how do you do that without relinquishing your authority. So I’m talking about for a single parent. So, you know, I absolutely agree that you want to involve family and friends in the parenting process. But how do you do it without relinquishing your authority without saying, “Okay, you guys can have equal authority in raising my child” like you would do if you were doing this with a partner. So that’s a kind of a sensitive line when you invite grandparents especially into that process. Talk about that a little bit.

TAL: Great question. I appreciate that. I think that it’s upon us to … that’s actually a little bit of a shadow work as well, because there’s a certain place that I think each parent needs to be able to let their child grow and give the autonomy, this autonomy-supportive parenting to the kids. And for some parents, it might be much tighter then with others. But in general, I feel like, and I don’t know if you guys might agree with this, I feel like in the last 40, 50 years, there’s been a tighter and tighter hold on the control of parents around what their kids are doing and how they’re interacting with people. You talk to parents from the ‘70s and they’re like, “I don’t know where my kids were. You know, I don’t, I just told them to get out of the house and they came back at dinner or after.” And now it’s totally different. And I think that there’s some beauty to that, to giving this autonomy, to being able to say, “Okay, I’m a single parent. How do I, why am I holding this person so close to me? Maybe I need to give some more to the people around me. Maybe I need to work on my trust levels.” But then be careful, of course, obviously, because there’s dangerous situations out there. But I think we err on the side of holding too close to that, personally. So I think we should think about that and move forward with letting them have more autonomy. 

DR. AMY: I’m fascinated by that response because I’m picturing, right, as a counselor seeing squishy boundaries happen right with expectations and, you know, what one person allows and what another person doesn’t allow. And so I’m fascinated by the idea, you know, of loving deeply, but holding loosely. And so, and that’s what I’m hearing you say that we really, well, first of all, I think what I’m hearing you say is we really need to trust the child, right, by giving them some power and control, right? And recognizing that we don’t have to be the ones that are always in control and hold all the power, right?

TAL: I actually would love to learn more what you guys think of this because you’re marinating in it all the time. But I would just say one thing pops up for me and that is this concept of “locus of control.” And it’s also in the book. I love this concept. Once I shared it with my sisters, they just keep bringing it up with me that “talk about locus of control.” So what it means is, locus is like the locality, basically of control. And so you can have either an external locus of control or an internal locus of control. And it’s not an either-or thing.

That’s kind of, it could be anywhere. It could be really far outside where you feel like your parents are telling you everything you need to do. And I’ve read a book recently where college freshmen bring their parents with them because they don’t know what to do because their parents have told them everything externally, how to do everything in life and they just don’t know how to operate on their own. And then you’ve got these parents from the ‘70s who were saying, “No, the control is in you. I don’t even care what you’re doing. Figure it all out.” I think there’s some kind of middle ground there. But you should move towards from an external towards an internal locus of control because the highest well-being is found when you have your own internal locus of control. For the most part. It’s a little bit murky there as well. But that’s, that’s the research that we found a lot in positive psychology. And I love that concept of thinking as a parent, “Okay. I’m not in charge of this person. I am simply taking care of them and helping them grow and figure out who they are, and I’m going to slowly turn that autonomy towards them and help them have that internal locus of control.” What do you guys think of that? I’m curious.

SANDY: Yeah, that on a spectrum really. Right. I mean, you’re always kind of vacillating between the two. I mean, if you think about it, so part of life is learning how to think that through. Am I in a place where I am in control? What do I have control of? And then, or am I in a place where I need to yield? And I have an external locus of control for the moment. In this particular area, for example, work, right? I’ve got to follow a line and do things that way. So it’s, it’s learning how to be in and out of both. I would think. Does that sound crazy?

TAL: I like that, Sandy.

DR. AMY: And I think, you know, you hit on something that we talk about a lot on, in this podcast and that’s helicopter parenting and, you know, how damaging to a child’s growth and development helicopter parenting can be. And you illustrated it by saying these kids have to take their parents with them to college because they can’t make their own decisions because their parent has made every single decision for them, not allowed them to make mistakes, not allowed them in the safety and emotional safety of home, right, to be able to learn from those mistakes and learn how to reason and plan and execute. And so I think, the research that’s coming out on helicopter parenting is really scary. Whereas you talk, you talk about an authoritative parenting style, which I think lends itself nicely to this idea of locus of control too, right, where you honor a child’s ability to have control and motivation internally as well.

TAL: Yes. Yes. Thank you for bringing that up. I find that so fascinating, this idea of authoritative parenting. And if there’s one kind of red line through the entire book, I feel like  it’s this style of parenting authoritative.  So you’ve got four different parenting styles, right? And these go back, way back to 1967.So this is a classic study that’s really stayed. And I tried to really only work with classic studies that aren’t getting disproved after 10 years or whatever. This is, this has been around for a long time. And basically what, Diane Baumrind, this researcher, found out is that authoritative is the best stance.So you’ve got authoritarian parenting or coaching. And that would be, “Because I said so.” It’s very, it’s very demanding, but not supportive at all. It’s like, “You do this, don’t ask me any questions.”Then you’ve got authoritative, which is, it’s kind of in between where it’s like, “I am demanding you need to turn off your screen in 30 minutes.” And, but then you say, “And this is why I need it. You need to get some sleep tonight. We have some homework we need to do. These are the things that need to happen before. And could we do that together?” And you’re warm about it. You’re kind about it, but you’re demanding you’re not, you’re not a pushover.And then you’ve got sort of this other parenting style, which is neglectful parenting. And that’s kind of not demanding or not supportive. That’s just those parents I was talking about earlier. Just go, “I don’t care what you’re doing. Just get away from me.”  And then, and then you’ve got, neglectful parenting, which, sorry, what would the, what would the …

DR. AMY: Permissive.

TAL: Yes, thank you. Thank you. That would, that would be the fourth one. Thanks. Thanks. And that would be where it’s in, and I actually err on the side of this, Sandy and Dr. DR. AMY, I had to learn as I was writing the book. “Okay. I gotta be more authoritative here,” because I’m more of a person who’s a little bit less demanding, but very supportive.And I admit that. And I, that’s my shadow work that I’m doing. But basically it is, it’s this amazing framework that I put out in the book where you can kind of think about how you are and figure out how you want to get towards that authoritative stance.

DR. AMY: Yeah. It’s funny in our home. I was absolutely permissive because my husband was authoritarian. And so I viewed it as this beautiful math equation, right? Authoritarian  averaged with permissive, right? Really is authoritative, right?  And of course, I was grossly misguided in this idea that it would just all work out. 

TAL: Wow. Well, that is amazing because we don’t, we do that all the time? We, we try and sort of balance each other out and it sometimes gets a little lopsided, but I think that that’s totally human of you, Dr. DR. AMY. And we all do that in different ways, I’m sure. But I think that it’s so, so interesting to sort of see that this one way has been proven over and over again. And, and people say, “Oh, shouldn’t you be best friends with your kids?” And, and that’s kind of the way I wanted it to be. But I realized after writing this book that you’re not best friends a lot of the time. You need to put a, put a foot down. You need to, because they actually respond to that. They need someone to help them with, with guidance. And, and I love that about that, about writing this book, cause it’s really helped me to be more of an authoritative parent.

DR. AMY: Isn’t that interesting? How, as, as you sit down to write, as an authority on this topic, how therapeutic it ends up being for you at the same time.

TAL: Yes, right?  I think that that’s, that’s the dirty little secret of writers, is that they actually are writing to figure out their own stuff. You know, I really do. I do believe that because my parents did the same thing. I mean, we’d sit down at a family dinner and my dad would bring something up or my mom about responsibility. I’m like, “Where is this coming from? Like, what are you guys talking about?” And then a few months later, their book teaching children responsibility comes out and I’m like, “Oh, okay. They were practicing what they were writing about.” And that’s exactly what’s so beautiful about dad mode. Let me just say “Dad Mode.” Is exactly the effort that we put in as parents being in dad mode is the about the effort towards a warm connection with our kids. It’s not in successful effort. It’s actually mostly failures. But it’s in trying. And I think that the key to my parents being successful as parents was not that they wrote all these books and they had all these ideas, it’s because they tried. They kept on trying, they kept on showing up and trying. And because of that, some of the stuff stuck and we, most of it didn’t, but some stuck. And I think that that’s the key for dads and moms to remember is just keep trying and you’re going to have a lot of failures, but you will have some things that’ll stick.

SANDY: I love your reconnection chapter. So let’s, since you brought it up, let’s go there. Let’s talk about losing your cool, apologizing and modeling forgiveness for your kids.

TAL: Great. Yes. So we all lose our cool, right? I love the Gottmans. I know you guys probably talk a lot about them on this podcast, but they’re this amazing relationship, these gurus on relationships that have been studying interactions of couples for so long. We lose, we lose our cool with our, with our partner. And if, if we do that, which we will, I’m pretty confident that most of the listeners I’ve been around long enough, it’s going to happen. And what we can do there is. If the child is present, we need to make sure that we sort of repair also in front of our kids as much as possible. This is something that my parents taught me and I love it because if the kids see that it’s damaging for them and in their connection with you. But then if they see that you also made up, but you figured it out, then they, they feel more secure about it. So that’s one piece. And then the second piece is I love this little volcano image, Sandy. And it’s basically where have this great illustrator. Every one of the 25 ways has an illustration by this Brazilian illustrator. He’s great. And he’s, it’s this dad inside of a volcano. And at the bottom, it’s green in the middle, it’s yellow at the top is red. And it’s such a nice framework to show kids and say, “Hey, there’s times when I’m totally in the green, I’m feeling great. Then I get into that yellow. And then if I’m getting into the red, I really don’t want to have an eruption. I don’t want to have this sort of a blow-up because I don’t think it’s healthy for us. So I’m going to tell you when I’m getting in, going from green to yellow. And then I’m going to, I’m going to tell you if I’m getting close to that red and maybe we need to take a break because I’m not, I don’t want to be losing my cool with you as often as I am.” And I’ve found that this actually helps mitigate the problems and also lower the amount of times that we actually do lose our cool because the child is also aware of it. They don’t want it. And if a dad can have this language, then … I love this book, “Power of Bad.” And it says that the most important thing is eliminate the amount of times that you actually do lose your cool, because those things are much more powerful than a bunch of really good things that happen. So thanks for the, thanks for asking about that. Does that answer your question, Sandy?

SANDY: Yeah, it does. You actually even give a tip in your book, which I really like. Would want you to expound on it’s about active, constructive responding. Cause you actually give like an example of how to communicate and respond. Now this isn’t in terms of reconnecting, but I love that it’s a way to show all parents, not just dads, but it’s, it can be really easy to not engage with your child in a moment where you could have made that choice to engage. Let’s talk about active constructive responding and what that means.

TAL: I love the question. This is the first time I’ve got this question. And that’s such a powerful one. I had a friend just contact me a few weeks ago and he said, “I’m loving the book. I read every, I read every 10 minutes before I go to bed every night. And I just read about this active, constructive responding thing. And it’s so powerful.” So what it is is basically it comes from positive psychology and it’s where if somebody comes to you and they have a capitalization, which means they come to you with some great news. “I got a good grade on a test,” right? And it depends on how we respond to that capitalization, that our connection can be strong. And so think about how often kids do this, right? They come home from school, “Look at this drawing I did.” And then if you have an active and constructive response, you set aside the thing that you you’re doing, and you look at it, and you actually pay attention to what it is. And you and you look at you don’t just say, “Oh, that’s great.” Or whatever. You look at the thing, you look, “How you did the tail of that horse? How did you do that? That must have taken you a long time.” And you say things that encourage a growth mindset, which would mean you praise the process that they went through to make this thing. So my default is like, I just look at the details on it and I say, “What? Tell me about this. How did you do this?” You know, like really excitedly right back at them. And it’s amazing how well it helps you with your connection with your kids. You can’t do this every time. There is no way humanly possible. But you can improve the amount of times that you do this active constructive responding.

DR. AMY: I love that. We actually teach early childhood teachers to respond that way to young children, right, rather than just saying “great job” or “how pretty,” right, and particularly with artwork. So I love that you use that example right that we teach early childhood teachers to say, “Wow, tell me about this or look how many colors you know what made you choose those?” So, you know, so that we help kids learn that metacognition and thinking critically about what it is that they did and how they got there. And so how cool then to bring that into a parenting dynamic, right? Not just in the classroom, but for a parent to really engage like that. I found that to be super beautiful.

TAL: Thank you. Yes. That is mostly in those other contexts, but why not apply it to this, these important relationships in the home. So thank you for that. Yep.

DR. AMY: Yeah, and it does take time. You’re absolutely right.  We have to be intentional. We have to say, “In this moment, my child is more important to me than the task that I’m working on and the relational equity that it’s going to build by my spending the next 30 seconds to two minutes with my child is going to really pay itself back.”

TAL: Yes. And I challenge, Dr. DR. AMY, challenge the listeners to try this. It’s amazing. It is really amazing. Like this is a concrete example. The next time your child does this, set your things aside, really respond actively and constructively, ask them questions and watch them. They will beam. My daughter was beaming after I did this with her. Even when I was, I remember writing this section of the book and she came in right then and it was like, “Okay, this, I’m definitely putting this in the book ‘cause this is great.”

DR. AMY: Yeah. And that builds self-esteem and self-confidence, right? Kids love to talk about themselves, right? And it makes them feel valued and seen. I mean, adults like to talk about themselves.

TAL: Yeah. Yeah. And I got to say on that topic, that’s a big one for my parents. This has been an interesting blazing of a new trail for me because my parents, they were of the, of the camp where you actually just praise, like shower with praise, just praise, praise, praise. And I actually, I feel like that was very helpful for me. I’m a confident person and I really appreciated their praise because it was authentic most of the time. And sometimes it was just to do a lot of showering of praise. And so what I try and do is a little less of the, like, the full-on showering, but I do more of the process praise because I think that that encourages our kids to do the things that what growth mindset teaches us, what Carol Dweck teaches us is this thing that you can learn to do anything with effort. And if you’re praising the effort that kids are putting into something, they’re going to want to do more of that. Praise is a very important thing in parenting. It can be used in powerful ways. It also can be used in difficult ways. So we’ve got to think about how we actually praise. And this is a good example of that.

DR. AMY: Can you flip this idea around, this active, constructive responding, can you apply that to a conversation with a child who has made a bad decision or has made a mistake and needs to learn how to do it differently the next time. How would you use that technique in a scenario like that? 

TAL: Right, right, right. That’s a good question. Yeah. So if somebody came to me. Actually you respond when somebody does something that’s not a capitalization, not something they’re super proud of. Right? So if they made a mistake, is that what you mean? Like if they made a mistake, they came to you. So the most important thing that I would turn to, Dr. DR. AMY, would be remember the unconditional love piece. You know, this, this whole, this underlying thing of saying it out loud and saying, “Look, you’ve made a mistake. It doesn’t change the way I feel about you. I will always love you. I’ll always care about you the same amount, but there’s some things that we all do. We all make mistakes and let’s talk about this for a little bit and we can make it better.” But I don’t think that it’s something that we should shy away from. But I just think we should say very clearly, “I’m not going to withdraw my love from you because of this thing. I want to work through it with you.” And I think that, God, if there’s anything that I could leave with the listeners today, it’s this unconditional love. If our children are feeling like conditionally, they only are loved if they are doing the right things that parents want them to do, we’re in for a long, long, difficult thing with connection in our, in our lives. And I think that if we all need to work on it, but if, if we can, we can do that, then that’s an example that I would give you of that.

DR. AMY: So we need to take a break and let Sandy read a word from our sponsor. And then when we come back, I want to talk about this idea of “feeling with rather than dealing with” that you talk about when we come back. 

SANDY: Tyler was struggling so much in his junior year of high school that he worried he would never get into his dream college. He would study for hours but continued to get poor grades. His mother was a teacher and it tried everything she could to help, but nothing stuck. Then she found LearningRx. The LearningRx team created a brain training program tailored to Tyler’s unique needs and goals. The next year, Tyler could focus more and better remember what he studied. The exciting news? Tyler was accepted into his dream college. While your child may or may not achieve these same results, LearningRx would love to work with you to get answers about your child’s struggles with learning. Get your child started with a cognitive skills assessment by visiting LearningRx.com or head to our show notes for links for more helpful resources. 

DR. AMY: Thank you, Sandy. Okay, so we’re continuing this amazing conversation that we’re having right now with Tal Eyre about his book, “Dad Mode.” And so you have a chapter where you talk about helping kids develop emotional maturity. And one of those ways or tips that you include is this idea of “feeling with rather than dealing with.” Talk a little bit about that.

TAL: So I love this part. I’m glad you asked this question because we don’t talk about it enough. But our kids, I think that part of the old way of parenting was kind of this like, “Figure it out.” And, you know, “You need to go to your room” or “You need to stand in the corner “or these timeouts or whatever at these. All of these things actually, in a lot of ways, they don’t help the kids to process what they’re going through. They don’t help them to improve their emotional literacy, their emotional intelligence. And so what I’ve learned from psychologists, there’s this amazing, a couple of different amazing ones, but the one that I’m remembering right now is this, I forgot her name, but we can put it in the show notes, but it’s the parenting book you wish that your parents had read, I believe is the name of the book or something like that. And it’s by a lady named Penelope, I believe. But basically she’s saying that we should feel with our children instead of deal with them. Isn’t it so easy to think, “Okay, I’m going to be just dealing with this situation. I need to get something done and I’m going to send my child to their room. They’re acting up.” But if we actually sit down with them and I’ll oftentimes get on a lower-than-eye-level view. So don’t be above, standing above them, but go down below. If they’re sitting on a couch, sit on the ground and look up at them and then feel with them, help them try and look.  What they’re actually going through and try and name the things the emotions that they might be feeling. And then you’re feeling those feelings with them and you say, “That feeling is you’re feeling a little bit of envy. I know that’s kind of a weird word for you, but envy is when we wish that we had something that someone else has.” And when they can make sense of that, they’re like, “Oh, that’s what envy is. I didn’t know. I just thought I was feeling bad.” But you know, there’s a lot more emotions than good and bad. And the more we can train our kids to have this emotional literacy, the more they can start saying, “Mom or Dad, I’m actually feeling, I’m feeling envy about this thing.” And it kind of sounds kind of weird for a kid to say, but the sooner they can do this, the better.  So that’s the idea of “feeling with rather than dealing with.”

DR. AMY: Yeah, so I talk a lot about co regulation of emotions and how, as parents, it’s our job, right, to be calm in their storm.

TAL: Yes, yes.

DR. AMY: We cannot co regulate if our child is in a different room, and so by sending our child to the corner or to their room, they will not learn anything about regulation, right? You have to be with them. Even if I always talk about hugging the fire and it’s really hard to hug the fire, right? Potentially that fire will die down, right? It won’t be so hot, you know, when we commit to doing that. So I love that you included that idea. So that book is called, “The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and Your Children Will Be Glad That You Did)” by Philippa Perry.

TAL: Thank you. That’s her. That’s her. Yeah. I totally slaughtered the title and the author. Sorry about that.

DR. AMY: We got you. It’s all good. 

TAL: But I wanted to say that when you were saying that, Dr. DR. AMY, I feel like that’s parenting, right? We have, we have to hug fire. We have to do shadow work. We have to, it really makes us confront these really difficult things. It makes us better people, but it’s not, it’s not fun. But I think that it’s, there’s nowhere better to be because you have this, this meaning behind trying to raise this child and help this child contribute in the world. But you’re, confronting all of your things and you’re trying to help them regulate their things. It’s just, it’s a crazy road, but I absolutely love this road.

SANDY: Let’s talk about intellectual humility. You’re kind of tapping into that right now. And in your book, you write “Dads who practice intellectual humility can improve their connection with their children as they learn to show that they could be wrong. And we are consistently learning and adjusting and improving and understanding the world around us.” Let’s talk about from a dad’s perspective, because I know from my husband’s perspective, he’ll be hopefully not listening to this podcast. Showing humility can be, I mean, I struggle with it too, but, I know, in general, it can be hard to show that humility and to, for example, apologize. Let’s talk about the importance of that and give us some phrasing examples of things parents can say or use with their kids to show and model that humility because we, in that same vein, you were just talking about with helping kids understand their feelings, we also need to show them and model that humility as well.

TAL: Oh, wonderful. Thank you. So what I, I got into the Templeton Foundation, which is this amazing organization that studies these kinds of things they study the topic of intellectual humility and it’s exactly this it’s where you basically admit that you could be wrong about things. And research shows really solid research shows that it’s not great to be in a Mr. Know It All or a know it all to your kids or to anybody else. Because in reality, we’re all learning. We’re more like scientists than preachers for, you know what I mean? Like a preacher is always trying to get people to believe the thing that they think is right. Scientists are constantly rethinking the way that they are going through life. And I think parents need to be a lot more like scientists. And that would mean in a dinner conversation, start the conversation by saying, ‘I could be wrong, but I think that this is the way that this works.” And I did this so often as I was writing the books, Sandy, that I actually, my daughter, after a few weeks of hearing me say this, she started a sentence with the same start. She said, “I could be wrong, but I think that …” and I was so happy. I was like on cloud nine, right? And, I feel like parents model things that they want their kids to do. And if we can say, “I could be wrong,” and then if we’re wrong, it’s … Just today, my daughter, we just got an aquarium for her. We got, she’s been working for some fish for months and years. She finally got an aquarium today and she wanted it in one place. And I wanted it in another place. We started putting it in that place I wanted. And then I was like, “You know what? I was wrong. You were right.” And she just beamed. She was so happy. And so I do this on a, on a fairly consistent basis and I look to try and do it more. So just modeling that. But intellectual humility is exactly that. It’s this, the scientist stance, basically that you’re constantly learning. 

DR. AMY: So we have parents of teenagers who follow our show. And so let’s talk a little bit about how you help teens reframe difficult conversations. So you say that strongly correlated with higher levels of well-being. So what does that look like to help them reframe a difficult situation?

TAL: Ah, great. Great. Okay. So even from younger grades, but I actually love that you’re asking about teens because I’m, my daughter’s going into, she’s 12 going on 16 right now. And she is, she’s right in the middle of that and it’s basically helpful throughout all the years, but what I encourage dads to do is to reframe. Let’s give an example of a soccer game, right? Let’s say that the child was in a soccer game. They played terribly, right? Like just really not had a good game. And what dads can do in that way is they may be saying, “Oh, it was terrible. Nothing’s ever going to be better, you know, it’s never going to get better. I should just quit the team.” And dads can at that point, they can help their child to reframe what happened in the game. And a simple thing that dads can do is say something like, “Well, you didn’t break your leg, right?” That’s a simple reframe. That’s like, “Okay, it was bad. Yes. And we’re not going to sugar coat this. It didn’t play super well, but you didn’t, you didn’t die out there. You’re, you didn’t break your leg. You’re able to come back.” I gotta tell you, my favorite player, although he beat up on the Utah Jazz, is Michael Jordan. And he missed so many shots, so many game winners. But he kept trying, and he’s remembered for those games that he won because of his failures. So you need to learn to work with the failures. That would be a reframe of a soccer game, for example. But I think dads have this great role, especially in sports, to be able to help their children to reframe difficult things into different ways.

DR. AMY: So I’m going to push back a little bit on you, which I have not done yet in this hour.

TAL: Let’s do this.

DR. AMY: Yeah. So I think it’s super important to validate all feelings. And so disappointment is a valid feeling. And so what do you say if I push back and say, does that invalidate how disappointing it is to lose this big game? Are we trying to get kids out of that space because their feeling is making us uncomfortable? Right? Or because we want to save them from that bad feeling rather than validate it. Talk to that. Talk about that.

TAL: Oh, well, here comes my line. “I could be wrong.”  I actually really like what you’re saying. And I believe you’ve thought about this a lot and studied about it. So I think that, I think that there’s a time for a reframe. And there, there maybe is a time, like you’re saying, for just sitting with them in their difficulty. So, this, that’s really well said, and I, there are things in the book that I would rethink. And, I don’t want people to misunderstand it. I think a reframing is really important. But I think that it’s not for every time. And it’s not like, look at the beautiful mountains when you’re really wallowing in a difficult situation. So I think that what I challenge dads to do is to read the room you’re in, read that room. And if you feel like what Dr. DR. AMY is saying, which I really am, I wish I could have written that in the book, Dr. DR. AMY. Then that’s important and just stay with them in it. But then if there’s a chance to reframe in a way that’s healthy in that moment, then you can do that as well. 

SANDY: I think what you’re saying though, is that, you know, dad’s kind of have a superpower of seeing the big picture sometimes too, in a way that in that reframing, you could also again, highlight strengths, right? You wouldn’t necessarily have to, you know, take away the thorny edges of the happening, but you could say instead, “But gosh, oh my gosh, you got this many points this game. That was amazing.” Right. Just try to reframe that way as well.

TAL: Yeah. Yeah. I like that. I think that there are different roles, Sandy, in relationships where there’s two parents and you kind of have to read that room as well. But I think that what you’re saying is really important. And I want to make this message clear to dads and moms that are listening as well, that sometimes the dads feel like they’re, you know, in second place. They feel like they’re, they don’t really have the connection with their kids as much as the mom does. And they’re trying to sort of work their way in. And sometimes it feels like it’s, it’s not possible. And why am I even trying? And I think dads do feel that. But I encourage dads over and over again in the book to, it does matter. It does matter to show up, even if it doesn’t feel like it. And to say the things you need to say, sometimes you’ll make mistakes. You, you know, a lot of times you’ll make mistakes, but you’re trying and that makes a big difference. So thanks for bringing that up.

DR. AMY: This has been an amazing conversation. We could keep going, but we can’t because we’re at the top of the hour. But Tal, what have you not gotten to say that you want to leave our listeners with?

TAL: Well, I just want to thank both of you because your questions were so, so amazing and I want to hear more of your podcast, so I’m going to be listening to it as well. But I wanted to just say that I think a good closing piece is that basically we have this ability to, I mean, there’s this long just longitudinal study that was done by Harvard. It’s the longest-running longitudinal study known. And it’s basically, it’s called the Harvard Study of Adult Development, also known as the Grant Study. And it follows men for over 80 years, asking them about their, what, what brings health and happiness and well-being. And it really is the whole thing is basically about the warmth of our connections. The warmth of our relationships. That brings the most health and happiness in men. And so that’s why the book is titled “Dad Mode; 25 Ways to Connect.” Because I think if you have a warm connection with your kids and your partner, you’re set. It’s kind of selfish, but you’re set for more health and happiness. But at the same time, it’s also setting your partner and your child up for a life full of meaningful connections. So that’s what I want to leave with is focusing on that connection.

SANDY: It’s the long game, right? 

TAL: The long game. Thank you, Sandy. Yes. Yes.

SANDY: All right. We are out of time. Thank you so much, Tal. We need to wrap up, but this has been such a fantastic conversation. We want to thank our guest today, Tal Eyre. I hope I’m going to mess this up.

TAL: That’s right. You got it.

SANDY: Tal Eyre for sharing his knowledge with us and his experience with our listeners.  You can reach Tal via TalEyre.com or on Instagram at TalEyre. His book is on Amazon. It’s “Dad Mode; Ways To Connect.” I believe it’s “25 Ways to Connect.”

TAL: 25 Ways. Yeah.

SANDY: There we go. And then coming soon, the Create Good Stories podcast, which we didn’t get to talk about, but we’ll put that in our show notes. Thank you so much for listening today. If you like us, please follow us on Instagram and Facebook at the Brainy Moms do it now, before you forget. If you liked our show and we would love it if you would leave us a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcast so that we can reach more parents like you. If you would rather watch us, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel. And if you want to catch some brain training or cognitive training, you can follow me at the Brain Trainer Lady on TikTok. But that’s all the smart stuff that we have for you today. We’ll catch you next time. 

DR. AMY: See ya!