How to be Better at the Job of Parenting

December 27, 2022
65. How to be Better at the Job of Parenting

It’s a constant challenge to do a good job of parenting. Dr. Robert Saul is a pediatrician and medical geneticist who has developed the parental awareness threshold, a simple framework that guides parents and guardians to actively parent with self-awareness, empathy, and compassion, where children learn to build nurturing relationships as well as exhibit love and respect for others.

 Here are some important moments with Dr. Saul from the podcast: 

At 9:11  Do you think it’s a problem when parents want to be “friends” with their children instead of being the parent?

 At 12:17 Do you think it’s important that we provide more resources and support to help parents?

At 17:15  When you tell your kids something does there always need to be a reason, or can it be “because I said so”?  

Here are some ways to follow Dr. Saul:

Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/mychildrenschildren

Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/allaboutchildren2017

Facebook:   http://www.facebook.com/consciousparentingPAT

LinkedIn:  www.linkedin.com/in/robertasaul

Youtube:  www.youtube.com/robertsaulmd

 Instagram:  www.instagram.com/rsaul

 Twitter:  www.twitter.com/@saul1robert

Important information from Homeowners Be Aware:

Here are ways you can follow us on-line:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/homeownersbeaware/

Website: https://homeownersbeaware.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-siegal/

If you'd like to reach me for any reason, here's the link to my contact form:

https://homeownersbeaware.com/contact

Here's the link to the trailer for the documentary film I'm making: Built to Last: Buyer Beware.

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Transcript

George Siegal: 0:00

Parenting is one of the toughest jobs that there is. I made a documentary film a few years ago called License to Parent. It was about the parenting problem in this country and how we don't offer enough support to help parents be successful at their job. Now, if you wanna adopt a child, you have to jump through all kinds of hoops, but there are no hoops to jump through for just having one. In fact, the only thing that the hospital seemed concerned about when we had our kids was if the car seat was strapped in properly. When parents don't do their job well, it damages their children. And when those damaged kids go out in the world, it has an effect on society as well. Now, my guest today is pediatrician and medical geneticist Robert a Saul. Dr. Saul developed the parental awareness threshold. It's a simple framework that guides parents and guardians to actively parent with self-awareness, empathy and compassion where children learn to build nurturing relationships as well as exhibit love and respect for others. I'm George Siegal, and this is The Tell Us How to Make It Better podcast. Every week we introduce you to people who are working on real world problems and providing actual solutions. Tell Us How to Make it Better is partnering with The Readiness Lab, the home for podcast webinars and training in the field of emergency and disaster services. Dr. Bob, thank you so much for coming on today.

Dr. Robert Saul: 1:22

Well, thank you. I'm really looking forward to this.

George Siegal: 1:25

Now, does it bother you that people who didn't go to medical school are called doctors?

Dr. Robert Saul: 1:30

Not really, because I mean, there are the you know, people that have a doctorate in philosophy PhD certainly deserve that. Doctor title. I think it's gotten a little liberal in terms of some other related specialties. But I've, I've grown to accept it.

George Siegal: 1:47

Chiropractors?

Dr. Robert Saul: 1:50

I've grown to accept it.

George Siegal: 1:53

Okay, well I'll, I'll take the mantle on this. It bu bugs the heck outta me cuz I think you guys should be in your own category and that they shouldn't get to poach on that name. Okay, so let's get to it. What is the problem that you are working on and what are you doing to make it better?

Dr. Robert Saul: 2:08

Well, if I can I, let me go back to how I, how I, how I got started on the journey. Sure. Finished. Finished right, my residency training in 1979. And also learned how to be a medical geneticist. So but started, started practice of medicine. I was gonna be the best darn doctor you could be. And I, I, people asked me what to do, doc, and I told them, and I knew, I knew because I'd been, I'd studied and I'd read, so I knew all the answers. About 14 years into practice, I realized, you know, I'm not paying back to the community like I should. And so I really needed to do better and what could I do? I went to hear a talk at the same time, and I heard someone say that whatever happens in your community, 12 words that have had a profound impact on on me ever since and would be relevant to everything we're talking about in terms of parenting. I am the problem. I am the solution. I'm the resource. So for anything that happens in the community, you need, you need to take personal ownership in it. It's not their problem. It's gotta be your problem. You gotta be part of the solution. And to do that, you need to devote your resources to it. So it's not their teenage pregnancy problem, it's not their drug problem. It's not their homelessness, homelessness problem needs to be mine. So I, it took me months to sort of figure out how to internalize that message and I went to, finally went to some of the folks in the community, you know, put me in, I'm ready, I'm ready to do good work. And I got involved even sort of smugly so that I was such a good person, such a good citizen. Then April 20th, 1999, two students walk into a high school in Littleton, Colorado, massacre 13 people and kill themselves. Asked myself, could that happen in my community? Yes. What have I done to make a difference? Not enough. That was really had a profound influence on me and I sat down within days and wrote out what I considered to be what I, the five steps to community improvement that start to make a difference in terms of turning that around. I put pencil to paper cuz that's what we used to do back then. And those lemme go through those five steps with you cuz I think they'll, that's what I hope build all my conscious parenting on. Number one, learn to be the best parent you could be. Parent and I chose those words carefully. Parenting is a constant learning experience. You are never done, and it's lifelong learning because as you get older, you think, oh, my kids are grown. I don't need to, oh, no, no, no, no. You are never done with parenting. And even then you become your parent's parent as as they get older and need some more assistance. I certainly found that out with my mother. And then the best parent you could be. Not everyone has the same abilities. Not everyone has the same capabilities. Single parent homes, homes with significant socioeconomic challenge, films, homes with significant diseases like cancer or disabilities or variety of things. Everyone has some potential impediment that's going to get in the way of being the best parent there could be. So my job was to help them learn how to be the best parent they could be. Now it's, it's a 40 year lesson for me, and that, sure. I used to tell people what to do, and then as I became a parent and as I was a professional for much longer, I realized, That my job was not to tell them. My job was to help gently peer behind the curtain, see the situation that was going on, establish a trusted relationship, and to help empower to, to help enable them to be the best parent they could be. So that's number one. Interrupt me anytime you have any questions.

George Siegal: 6:11

No, no. I want to hear the, the list first.

Dr. Robert Saul: 6:13

Number two is get involved. It's so important to get involved in your community in some way, shape, or form. There's so many ways of doing that. You can do scouting, you can do church, you can do school, you can do all of the above. You can do trash pickup. There's just so many things that one can do, and it's so important that parents do it and the children do it with them to get involved. Number three is a little related, but I think equally difficult at times. Stay involved. Sometimes it's easy to get involved, but sustaining that involvement can be, can be difficult. Number four is probably the most intuitive. But seemingly the most difficult in today's society, love for others. We have forgotten the golden rule and love thy neighbor. We seem to be shouting at and past each other in terms of understanding and empathizing with others. And then number five, I think is the toughest, forgiveness, being able to exercise to accept forgiveness and exercise forgiveness. I love the little book and I, if you haven't read it, you Should by Mitch album called Tuesdays with Morrie.. And I'm, and I simplify one of Morries messages in there, in that you can, you need to forgive yourself first for what you're feeling. Or haven't done, forgive others and then do it now. So those five steps were sort of the, my stepping stone. And over the next 12, 13 years, I wrote over 160 oped articles for the local newspaper. And then turned that into my first book, My Children's Children Raising Young Citizens in the Age of Columbine. Cuz I think what we've lost track of is the goal of parenting for me should be to raise our children to be good citizens. That's happiness is not the goal, I don't think, is the goal of parenting. Happiness is the blissful secondary side effect if we raise our children to be good citizens. So one of the, I'll pause.

George Siegal: 8:27

Yeah. One of the things that drives me nuts is when I see parents who act like they want to be friends with their children when they're young. As opposed to making the tough decisions and, and, and making the, the, you know, their imprint on them, on, on what's right and what's wrong, because you wouldn't do the same thing with a friend as you would with a child. Do you see that as a, as something you've come across a lot as a potentially a problem?

Dr. Robert Saul: 8:54

Not if it's done right. I mean, I think, I think you do. I think your, your children should have this innate trust in you that you love them unconditionally. And, but you might not love their, be some of their behaviors. And so that's the issue that you're dealing with is the behaviors. I mean, I, I think if you're just trying to essentially capitulate give into your children, so they'll be so, they'll be your best buddy that's wrong because you're gonna have to make the tough, like you said, you're gonna have to make the tough decision, but you're gonna have to be introspective about that, and we'll talk about that in terms of conscious parenting. You can't just think I got it all. You have to be conscious in, in terms of how you do that.

George Siegal: 9:38

Well, I made a documentary film a few years ago called License to Parent and, you know we, we weren't actually advocating licensing in order to be parents. We were told by an attorney that violates the constitutional right that people have, but, It would help if people had a better understanding of what the job of parent actually entails. You know, some people think they're getting a job that maybe until the kid's 18 and they push 'em outta the house and they're done. They don't understand it's a lifelong commitment, and I don't think they really understand all the day-to-day things that are involved in order to parent a child.

Dr. Robert Saul: 10:13

Oh, I would agree. I would agree. It's, it's tough. I don't know if you've seen the play or know the play dear Evan Hansen. Yes. The two, the ver the opening number has two mothers with their teenagers lamenting what's going wrong. And I, and I love it cuz let me just give it to you quickly. One, one mother says, does anybody have a map? Anybody maybe happen to know how the hell to do this? I don't know if you can tell, but this is me just pretending to know. So where's the map? I need a clue cuz I'm flying blind and I'm making this up as I go. So the whole point of my work is to try to help set a paradigm about what parenting is about and how one can do be more introspective about that to raise your child to be an understanding empathetic citizen and be a positive contributor to society going forward.

George Siegal: 11:08

Well, as a, a father of five children, I can say from a, looking at it, from the kind of assistance you get, and I'm not talking about financial assistance, I'm just talking about support, when you, the only thing they really are concerned about is when you're leaving the hospital, whether that car seat is fastened in properly. Beyond that, you're kind of sent out into the world to, to figure it out on your own. And so one of the takeaways I thought from our film was we need to have more support for parents, we need to make more things available so there are resources for them to turn to when they have issues and, and concerns for being parents.

Dr. Robert Saul: 11:45

Oh, absolutely. And I think, you know, I think we've lost if, if our education K through 12 is to essentially to prepare the whole point of the educational system is to prepare us to be functioning citizens in our society. We've lost track of that whole process of citizenship and parenting in terms of how to, to do that in school. It's become unpopular because you can't tell me how to parent is the, is the word I have in terms of freedoms, well, I. I think you can, I'm telling you how to parent. I'm presenting a basic paradigm of what parenting is about and how people can use that in a positive way. But I think the whole point of parenting is that it's whatever you do as a positive parent spills into everything you do in your life as a positive spouse, as a positive citizen. You know what I've tended to

George Siegal: 12:43

find over the years, the parents that are the most offensive about you can't tell me how to parent generally, not always the best parents because it, it's a, it's a learning on the job thing. I mean, every, if somebody comes up to you and has some feedback on something your child did, and you can't listen to it with an open mind and, and, and work with that, I think it's tough to do your job well.

Dr. Robert Saul: 13:04

Well, I agree. I mean, I think in all my years of training physicians and training medical students I always emphasize to them if they're not humbled daily, They're not paying attention. And then I oftentimes say, well, you know, you can probably compress that timeframe to an hour. The same thing holds with parenting. If you're not humbled daily, you're not paying attention in terms of what's going on.

George Siegal: 13:31

Yeah. I think people don't realize if you live out in the woods, have a compound out there and your kids never leave, then maybe you have a little more liberty to do what you want, but once they start wandering into town among the other people, you have a responsibility to have, to, to be turning out decent human beings. And what's shocking to me when we see these horrible tragedies in the news and, and on a smaller scale, even with the, the, the, the, the, the young girl that was killed and the Brian Laundry, the, the boy that ended up taking his own life afterwards and their parents obviously covering up for the kid. It's just shocking to me what parents will do even when they're making horrible decisions and it affects so many people.

Dr. Robert Saul: 14:13

Oh, I, I would agree. Let me take you through a little bit of conscious parenting or how, how I got there. To give you a sort of a, a basis. Late in my career, I made a change to a different healthcare system, being in one place for 34 years, and I had to take a leadership course and I rolled my eyes and said, oh, do I have to do this? But it was worthwhile. It was called conscious leadership, and they, the, the whole point was there is a line, and when you're above the line, you're open, you're receptive, you're ready to learn. When you're below the line, you're closed, you're defensive, you're always right. And we're human. We're gonna be above and below that line all the time, and we've all been at that three o'clock meeting where our eyes are rolling, saying, when is this thing gonna be over? I am so bored. And if you're a conscious leader, you now know that you are below the line. So you can consciously say, I'm gonna stay there until four o'clock comes around, or I can get more engaged, I can listen more and be more attentive to what's going on. Same thing I think applies to parenting and that's where I came up the, with the parental awareness threshold. When you're above the line, you're open, you're receptive, you're ready to learn. When you're below the line, you're closed. You're defensive because I said so, because I'm the parent, and we're as parents are gonna be above and below the line. Conscious parents for me are those that are consciously aware of, of where they are in a given situation. And where their child is developmentally in a given situation and how they can maximize positive responses and minimize negative responses.

George Siegal: 15:59

Well, you know, it's such a mind numbing responsibility sometimes day-to-day parenting with the things that we have to deal with with young people. And you, you know, you talk about being, being open and listening, but sometimes there has to be, do you think it's wrong for a parent to just say because I said so? I mean, in, in a lot of situations in life, if you're at work, if you're in the military, if a police officer is giving you instructions, sometimes that's the instruction, because I said, so. Not everything has to be explained and everything has to be laid out for you so you clearly understand what's going on. I mean, isn't there a time and place for that?

Dr. Robert Saul: 16:35

I would argue that it depends on the developmental stage of the child. That is some younger children who are now, who are formulating what's the right and wrong and language, because I said so, sounds so dogmatic and so sound sounds so concrete. It feeds into their concrete way of looking at the world. I think. You can say, because I said so, but this is why I said so. Because, and this and that. Now granted at times we're gonna be dismissive of our teenagers when they keep pushing our buttons. And we might say, because I said so, but I think we, again, we need to be careful. What I think for almost every interaction, and this is probably not accomplishable, but I'd like to think that's the ideal. And there's a developmental or there's a behavioral issue that's obviously brewing because you're not pleased with what's going on. You need to pause, assess, and choose. You need to pause. Knee jerk reactions are never good. Yeah, you need to assess the situation where you are individually. Maybe you're tired, maybe you're frustrated or, or where the child is, and then choose a response. Now, in the moment, you might choose the wrong response. Hopefully, what you'll do in retrospect is just analyze what, what you did, what went right, and what went wrong. And, but I think that's so important. I'll give you a couple examples. I think my son was about seven or 8 one night. He said something that, that clearly made me very angry and I yelled at him. He just turned into a puddle. I mean, he was just because dad had yelled at him and mom now was not pleased with me. We went into that family meltdown mode where nobody talks and just walks past each other for an hour or two. I'm sure that never happened at your household, but...

George Siegal: 18:38

since how long ago?

Dr. Robert Saul: 18:39

So later that night I said, son, I wanted to apologize for what I did. I think what you did was wrong because blank. But my response was totally inappropriate and I want to tell you I'm sorry and I wanna apologize for that. And he said, dad, would you be quiet? I said, why? I said, he said, cuz I hate it when you're nice. So, and I, and I'm not saying that to pat myself on the back, but it was a, it was a pause, assess and choose kind of moment even though that was over 20, 20 plus years ago. Another quick example, and again, you pick up your child from school. Eight years old child said, oh mom, I'm so thirsty. So you drove, you go through the drive-in, get a big, you know, large soda of some sort and say, turn around, hand it to him in the backseat. Don't spill this. Well, you know, two blocks later, mom, the drink spilled. Well, you know, and your first reaction, I told you not to do that. Now I gotta get out, stop the car and clean, clean this mess up and everything else. And it might all, it might have been carelessness on the point of the child. But was it wise to get a big drink for, for a child in the ba in was it maybe it was that quick turn you took that knocked the book bag into the drink? So, pausing, assessing and choosing can help. So even if you did, Yell and get very upset at the time, hopefully when you reassess the situation. So, you know, in retrospect, I didn't do that well, what can I do better and how can I rectify the situation going forward? So it's important you have a, your spouse, a good friend, your pastor, your pediatrician, you know somebody who you can help through this process in all these little hills and valleys that you go through as a parent.

George Siegal: 20:37

I think a lot of times we put our kids in bad situations when we knew it was a bad idea. And I was telling my kids last night, my new philosophy is, if something seems like a bad idea, it is, and we're not gonna do it. Because I can go back over my life and every time there's been something with a child where I said, this is not gonna work out, and I'm not talking about little stupid things, I'm talking about more significant things, generally that's been the right call, but allowing it to happen creates a worse situation. Now I, I know the argument will be, well, you gotta let 'em make mistakes. You gotta let 'em learn. Like I say, I'm not talking about little stuff, but you know, when we put 'em in bad situations, are we kind of setting 'em up for failure sometimes?

Dr. Robert Saul: 21:18

Oh, absolutely. I mean, having seen a lot of children with You know, attention deficit disorder in my career. And dealing, trying to deal with parents to try to s try to analyze and be more self-reflective of the situation and see where the situation brewing. Sometimes they'll say, you know, I can't even take Johnny to the grocery store. Well, my click solution is don't take Johnny to the grocery store. Cuz if you're gonna put Johnny in a position where he's gonna fail, he's gonna get upset, feel, feel bad about himself, and you're gonna get upset and it's just gonna create turmoil. Now, the comeback to that, as parents say, well, you're coddling your kid. He just gotta take him to the grocery store and guts it through. Well, you know, you can do this in a sequential manner. You don't have to just, it's not all or none.

George Siegal: 22:06

Yeah, I agree with you. It's just picking the right time to take them to the grocery store. This happened to me the other day. My wife said, if you take our daughter to the store, you're gonna spend an extra 50 bucks, cuz she's just gonna grab stuff off the shelves that she's never going to eat. And some people would make the argument, well, she has to learn. Tell her, no, you can't have this, you can't have that. Well, I think the whole situation has to be right. As a parent, you have to be in the right frame of mind to give that lesson. Do you want the screaming in the supermarket? Do you want the fight over those things? So it really is, a lot of parenting is picking and choosing your battles. So the lesson you wanna teach them can be taught at the right time.

Dr. Robert Saul: 22:39

So it's a conscious awareness of where you are as a parent. And so that's, that's so important because you know, Getting the kids ready for

school at 8: 22:50

00 AM on a Monday, presumably the same set of circumstances, 8:00 AM on Thursday might be very different in terms of how you respond because you've got that podcast, you've gotta go here, you're upset about, you're nervous about this, and so you might respond very differently. And it's important to understand where you are in that situation.

George Siegal: 23:13

If you have a kid who's chronically oversleeping and would be late. Would you keep waking them up or would you let them learn the hard lesson by being late to school?

Dr. Robert Saul: 23:22

I would wake them up. But why are they oversleeping is the question are they, are they going to bed too late?

George Siegal: 23:29

Yeah. Getting their cell phone after they fall, after we've fallen asleep and staying up late. Yeah. Happens all the time.

Dr. Robert Saul: 23:35

Yeah. And so you need to sort of not just look at the at the result, but you've gotta try to look more at the root cause. How can we change this? And so it's not like you can say, okay, tonight everyone's going to bed at nine 30. Cuz that's what the, that's the new family norm. And if you, everyone, that's not what everyone does. You've gotta, in a logical sequence, start, start to do that. But yeah, I mean, I don't think my b my bias is I want my child to get to get up and get going. But I, I need to look back at how can I get more at the root cause of why they're oversleeping. And so if I need to take their cell phone away Yeah. After eight o'clock,

George Siegal: 24:20

I remember when when I was little, my dad was taking us someplace and he said, be at the car at seven o'clock in the evening. Cause I'm leaving at seven while smart alec me wanders out there at 7 0 1 and I see the car headed up the driveway. He left without me. I gotta tell you, I was never late again. I am the most punctual person I know because I learned that lesson the hard way, as opposed to them, them just maybe backing up and getting me and saying, well, don't do it again. I told you, I mean it.

Dr. Robert Saul: 24:53

Yes, but that it's not, every child won't, wouldn't have the same reaction. And let me use the example of physical punishment. I think physical punishment is wrong. Some people say, you know, when I was young, my dad gave me a good whooping, and boy, it sure taught me a lesson. But we now know that children that are, that are, that suffer some physical punishment, are much more likely to doll it out themselves in the future. And the exam, the analogy is not everyone that gets lung cancer. Excuse me. Not everyone that smokes gets lung cancer, but it sure increases your risk. Not everyone that gets physically punished as a child becomes a punisher or an abuser, but it certainly increases your risk. Not one. I would want to, to take or to recommend a p parents as a pediatrician. Because the word discipline, which is what you're show hopefully doing, the root, root word for discipline is disciple, which means to teach.

George Siegal: 25:55

I think it's important that kids learn accountability. I agree with you though. I don't think hitting is is ever a way to, to, to get that outcome. So how do we get parents to be more aware and open so they can look at the job that they're doing and evaluate themselves, give an honest assessment of how they're doing and how they can get better at being parents?

Dr. Robert Saul: 26:16

Well, I mean, it's, again, it's as a pediatrician, you know, I've been, was doing it for over 40 years until I recently retired. And it was, it was in my one-to-one encounters in the clinic. It was having parents being more aware of the situation. In terms of trying to understand how if the child, you know, like the kid's driving me crazy, oh, he knows how to pull my chain. He knows how to do this or, or she knows how to do that, well you just need to think through what's going on. You need to be more conscious about that, and that's what I did in my little book, conscious Parenting. I tried to come up with sort of a paradigm and then look at the various age ranges when parents and children are having behavioral skirmishes and how to deal with it. It is not an exhaustive book. If this happens, what you, you can't go to the index and find out how to do this. It's learning the paradigm of what parenting is all about and again, My parents divorced when I was young, and I remember my mother did a fantastic job saying, I just want you to be happy Bob. Fortunately for me, I didn't follow her words. I followed her actions and what, and what she did in the community. So I think it's important that we, that we, I, we want our children to be happy, but again happiness to me is a blissful secondary side effect if we raise our children to be good citizens.

George Siegal: 27:47

I know every generation has its own unique set of problems, but it seems like the way the world's going now with social media and access with bullying that happens online with such instant, instantaneous things that can go out there to get reactions from people. You think this is the maybe one of the toughest times of all to be a parent with all that's going on in the world?

Dr. Robert Saul: 28:09

I think it's very difficult. You know, I sometimes it's hard to compare because some of the conveniences are certainly offset by some of the negatives we have. But I think you're right. I mean, I think there's some b there's some basic talks as your children get older and become more responsible, hopefully be in, in the teen years that need to happen. As you get there, there's obviously the sex talk in terms of in terms of concern about sex, in terms of pregnancy, pre pregnancy sexual diseases and just the whole, the whole concept of, of how sex in a loving relationship versus just a spur of the moment thing. So hopefully that's a, that's a discussion that takes place over time with your children. When they become 16 and they want to drive, you should have an ongoing conversation about driving cuz they have now gotten behind the most lethal weapon of their young adulthood. And we certainly know that if you ask folks in the insurance industry or in law enforcement, we certainly know. So there are obviously are certain rules in terms of they have to have to abide by. And if those rules are broken, then they calmly are their consequences. The same sort of thing should be happening in terms of social media use and I guess you could say social media slash video games. Because they're, in many ways, they're certainly related. There certainly have to be Have to understand the long-term consequences, the short-term consequences, and there needs to be some parental control.

George Siegal: 29:41

So if you had to give one piece of advice to parents as we kind of put a button on this, one one thing that they might want to take to heart and go, Hmm, what would you tell 'em?

Dr. Robert Saul: 29:55

Oh, that's a toughie. But my, my biggest thing, my biggest thing is exercising, accepting and practicing forgiveness. I think that's so important. Personal forgiveness, family forgiveness, and social forgiveness. I think that's what we've have, have forgotten how to do. And when one learns how to forgive and be understanding, life is so much more different.

George Siegal: 30:17

That's good. And you know, another one that I like, that I try to impart on my kids, because it's hard to earn it back, is trust. It's, it's trusting that they're, if they're not, that they're telling you the truth and that they're making the right decisions.

Dr. Robert Saul: 30:30

Oh, absolutely. And you know, obviously the two things, or the one thing that goes hand to hand with trust is always truth telling. So as the, as the, as the child, when you recognize that, that there seems to be a big gap in the truth telling there, obviously you can say this is eroding our trusting relationship here. But it does go the other way too, as. Fib. Sometimes we do some fibbing because we think it's, it's acceptable in the moment. And I've certainly have been not known to do that myself. But it's easy for those to start stretching and, and bigger gaps in the truth, so we have to be very careful.

George Siegal: 31:07

Sure, kid, kids are very aware of what's going on in the house. In most cases. They, I think they know when their parents aren't being straight with 'em in a lot of instances.

Dr. Robert Saul: 31:14

I mean the big thing that's going on now in terms of early brain and child development and looking at children that are suffer from childhood trauma and children that have been able to overcome it in some way, shape or form. The biggest take home that we found is that it's safe, stable, nurturing relationships that children have with adults. Hopefully it's their parents, but sometimes it's a different caregiver. But it's the safe, stable, nurturing relationships or what we call SSNR's that make a difference going forward.

George Siegal: 31:48

There's a certain innocence that children have and when you see certain tragedies in the world or things that happen to them and it takes that away, they never get that back, do they?

Dr. Robert Saul: 31:57

It's hard. It, it takes time and energy. It's not never, but it's it's, it's certainly a scarred.

George Siegal: 32:06

So what's the best way for people to follow you and stay with you on social media or get in touch with you, get your books? What's the best, what's the best way?

Dr. Robert Saul: 32:14

Probably the best way is my website, which is my children's children.com. It has my books, it has a blog. If somebody's interested in getting my weekly blog, they can contact me via the Via the website. I'll be glad to put them on the mailing. And it has a whole host of interviews that I've done in the past. That's the best way. And I have other social media sites, but it's my website is the gateway of the portal to all of that.

George Siegal: 32:42

Excellent. And all the links to you, I'll put in the show notes so people will be able to get in touch with you. Dr. Bob, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate your time.

Dr. Robert Saul: 32:51

Thank you. I, I really enjoyed it.

George Siegal: 32:53

Thank you so much for joining me on this week's Tell Us How to Make It Better podcast. Once again, if you want to get in touch with Dr. Bob, all the links to his social media and to get his books are right there in the show notes, and there's also a contact form in the show notes. If you have any ideas for upcoming shows or comments about anything you've seen, anything you agree, any, especially things you disagree with, I would always love to hear from you. Thanks again for listening. See you next time.