Episode 260
Title: Are We Training Our Kids to Be Lazy Moochers?
Host: Dr. Nicole Rivera
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Transcription:
What's up, everyone? Welcome back to another episode of Integrative You Radio. I am Dr. Nicole, and I am bringing you a thought provoking podcast today. Primarily, I like to preface with that because this is just about opening your mind to think about how this potentially impacts you and your family. And in Dr.
Nick and I becoming parents, I just feel like we're, we're always thinking, we're always thinking about, you know, why do kids do what they do? Why do they act the way they do? And obviously some of these thoughts come up because We have worked in the integrative medicine space for 13 years now, but in the beginning of our practice, we worked with chronic illness solely.
We worked with the hardest cases from all over the world and, you know, we called ourselves a resort practice. Not in a good way primarily because it was on repeat. You're my last resort. You're my last resort. And we do things a lot differently now. We're, we're really focused on progressive entrepreneurial families.
You know, people that have somewhat been on a similar path to us, you know, they've never stopped asking questions. They think outside of the box. They want the best for themselves, but they also want the best for their families. They're interested in growing themselves to be the best. And be the best leader to their children.
And they're interested in living, living life, not necessarily just letting life happen to them and be a victim to their circumstances or chaos. So, in this idea of thinking about things, you know, sometimes we go back to some of these sick kids that we worked with. At that time, we didn't dive deep into family dynamics because we just didn't know what we didn't know.
But we now know that our children and their outcomes are such a direct result of, of us. who we are as humans. And I always find it funny because my son is the mirror. He is the mirror of my good and my bad. And so when he is acting a fool, I had to sit back and say, okay, what, what, what part of me is this?
And it really showcases things that maybe are totally out of your awareness. But it really makes me think constantly about how we are shaping our kids consciously and unconsciously. You know, there's a lot of things that we do from schools that we choose and activities that we choose to shape our children.
But at the end of the day, from birth to age seven is when they're going to be the most influenced through their development. They're spending most of their time with you and things that you're unconscious that you're doing and saying, I'm going to give you an example in just a minute, they are emulating and sometimes we're like, what the fuck was that?
And really, at the end of the day, like they didn't say anything. See it from nowhere. Don't get me wrong. If your kids are in daycare or they're going a lot of other places, they might be picking up on things from their external environment, but more than likely, they're emulating you because you are their role model.
They love you. They, they look up to you. But I have a family that I'm working with right now and we were having a long chat about just some things that are going on in the family dynamic and some of the stress that the parents are under and, you know, some of the things that they're seeing behavior wise with the kids.
And, you know, as we were talking about this specific behavior, the mom was like, but I don't even understand, like, we're so nurturing and we're so caring. And I don't know why he would go to that like doom and gloom mindset and be that extreme. And she goes, I don't know why he's putting so much pressure on himself with his, you know, with this one subject in school, and he thinks that he's just a failure, even though his grade point average is really good, and, and so I just was asking better questions, asking questions, asking questions, I was like, sometimes this isn't about what you directly say to your kid. It's what you're doing or saying behind the scenes that they're observing. And so I knew that her husband was an entrepreneur and I'm an entrepreneur and I know how fucking stressful it can be at times, especially when you have not.
done anything to set the pace of your business and to balance your personal life. You know, there's a lot of us that we go through a decade or multiple decades that our business is running us, and I know that that was his circumstance that his business was running him, and there was a lot of stress and chaos around it.
I was like, well, let me ask you this. Does your husband ever, you know, talk about work at home? Yeah, of course. Do you find that sometimes he's saying things like, Oh, this person's so stupid. I just can't believe I have stupid employees. Or like, you know, I can't believe this person fucked up our accounting.
And you know, if you're bad at math, you're just bad at life. Or, and I was like making up like extreme scenarios. And she goes, he's actually very particular on math. He thinks that math is like what runs the world. And, you know, math is such an important subject. And he does say, you know, things about employees or you know, different vendors that work for them and, and he will express his frustrations and not the most savory way.
And I was like, okay, well, we have to think about that. You're, he's not, your husband's not saying that, you're not saying that to your son, but he's smart and he observes everything. And now he's putting massive amounts of pressure on himself in his math class, you know, talking down to himself and saying that he's, stupid and he's unworthy of being part of the family because he's not good at math.
And it's because his dad is his idol, his role model, and he wants to impress him. And if he's doing bad at the one subject that dad thinks is the most important to run the world, then it's not about him. dad saying anything. It's, it's about the pressure he's putting on himself just to live up to a, a fantasy expectation.
And she was like, huh? I was like, you just have to understand. It's like, we have to live in congruency to what we say to our kids. We can't, you know, we can't just act a certain way in other parts of our life. And especially if it's in the home environment, but then say kids, you know, like we're cursing on the phone and then kids don't curse.
Or, this person's fucking stupid, be kind to others. Don't talk like that to, you know, you gotta be nice to people. You know, that's when kids start to become disrespectful to us. Because they think we're out of integrity. You know, they don't always have the words or the intelligence to say that. But they're just like, You're telling me to do something that you don't do, so I'm gonna call bullshit on that, and now I'm going to, I'm gonna fire back, and especially, you know, for me, and the type of kid that I was, like, I was bold, I was intense, and so, you know, my parents were fucking exhausted because I was pushing back, and it was partly because I felt a lack of respect from them, And I was like, okay, if that's the way you want to treat me, I'm lesser than you as a child, then, you know, I'm gonna give you hell.
Not every kid's like that. Sometimes they internalize it. But how much damage is that doing? You know, it's damage no matter which way you go. And so I think that living in integrity is, is such a important part. And we can't be perfect. That's not what this is about. But if there are specific values and lessons and beliefs and, and certain aspects of character that we want to instill in our kids, You know, we need to own that and we need to be developing ourselves, learning things that, that are out of our skillset.
You know, that, that is one of the key things that so many of us get caught up in all the shit we have to do. We don't remember the last time we read a book or we, you know, listen to a podcast or we did something for ourselves to grow ourselves, to become a little bit better in our lives. And. You're gonna find that, one, your kids are not going to subscribe to that belief of being better, being solution oriented, being accountable.
You know, they're gonna want to live with you forever. They're gonna, if something goes wrong, it's your fault as mom and dad, or you need to bail them out. So it's a ripple effect. And you can't control your kids. So don't think you can. You'll be fucking exhausted if you think you're gonna control them.
The only thing you can control is you. And so if you can strive to grow yourself in whatever capacity feels good to you, your kids are going to look at you very, very, very differently. And, and if you're able to be in integrity with what you're teaching them, like live what you teach to them, there's going to be a level of trust, a level of respect, that is going to go a longer way than anything else.
that you can imagine. And it's funny because this is a total tangent that I just went on because the main focus that I wanted to talk about today, which is linked to everything that I just said, is, you know, this idea that we're training our kids for this chaotic, imbalanced life, this, this hustle culture.
And, you know, when I work with, with families, I work with families that, you know, they're, they're entrepreneurs, they're busy, and they obviously are, are, they're trying to build a legacy for themselves. They want to build generational wealth for their families. And some of them, Have, you know, they come from a background of that, and, you know, they're just continuing that generational legacy, that generational wealth.
And then some, even like myself, we're creating it from the ground up, coming from nothing and building something that no generation past has built. Which, if you are building something from the ground up, or you're, you're building, you're building something new that nobody in your family has ever built, or, and, or you're an immigrant.
You know, you are programmed to work hard, you're programmed that struggle is part of life, you're programmed that you need to hustle in order to get ahead. Like, you're programmed for that. I was programmed for that. It's still something that I'm working on, to be really honest. And so, I feel like there's a lot of people talking about this idea of homeschooling, or putting their kids in unconventional educational systems.
And they're talking about this because they realize that, One, they're not getting the education that they hoped for in school. School, there's a lot of politics now. A lot of things that, you know, can't be done, can't be said. But also that this idea of, you know, go to class, listen. You know, we don't tap into any other senses.
You know, take a test. A test will yield if you're good or you're not. If you're, if you're a smart kid or you're a dumb kid. If you are going to make it in life or you're not going to make it in life. Bell's gonna ring, you have a, you know, you sit in a cafeteria and lunch, like, people are realizing that this is, this is factory workers, like, school is training children to be factory workers, training kids to, to follow and not lead, training kids that the textbook is the only truth, you know, training kids to ask permission to take a piss, To ask, you know, to not ask questions because the textbook is always right.
You know, it's ripping the creativity out of our children. So people are looking for other alternatives. And I know in the health and wellness arena, there's a lot of people looking for other alternatives simply because they don't want their kids to eat the toxic fucking food in the cafeteria, which is legitimately so disgusting and toxic.
That's a totally different podcast, by the way, but. What I would want to invite you to think about is, let's say you are choosing an unconventional educational system and you're homeschooling, you're doing pods, you know, or you're doing like a very well rounded private school, something like that. But, you want to expose your kid to a lot of different things.
You want to You know, you want them to be the best, you want them to have opportunities, you want them to be versed, you want them, you know, to have exposures to music and sports and all of these things. And it's all from a very, very good place. But what about the idea of kids being involved in a million different extracurricular activities?
So, okay, we've rectified the imbalances in the educational system of, like, I don't want my kid to be a factory worker. I want him to think outside the box. I want him to be progressive. I want him to ask questions. I want him to not believe everything that he's told from a textbook. I want him, or her, you know, I want, I want them to, to, you know, To have a different chance at different things in life.
Okay, fantastic. But if you are now wanting them to be exposed to all these things, and now they're enrolled in everything from different sports, and like intensely competitive sports, and they're, you know, we want them to learn a language, and we want them to play an instrument, and we want them to do all of these things.
How is this actually affecting them later? And the reason I'm posing this question is because I have multiple business degrees at this point. I have worked with humans for many, many, many years from all different walks of life. And I also have a thorough training in human behavior and NLP. And so I get people, I know people I love people.
And that's the only reason I'm, I, I do it because I love people. But in all of the things that I've learned, especially in business. It's always focus. Focus on one thing. Don't spread yourself thin. Don't become, you know, the, the master of nothing because you are involved. I'm like totally forgetting that exact saying.
But, you know, because you're involved in so many different things or learning so many different things at one time, you know, you become a master of nothing. Focus on one thing. Do it, write, check it, track it, audit it, and you will see it yield amazing outcomes. And so, I thought about this idea of what if the exposure to different things But letting kids decide.
Letting them decide what allows them to be the most creative, what allows them to have the most fun, what allows them to feel fucking energized and inspired, and let them give it their all. Let them hone in and give their maximum effort, give them their max, give their maximum output and be able to see that.
Flourish to see the outcome, but while maintaining fun, inspiration and creativity. You ever sit down to try to do something and you're like, it could be like an email. It could be a phone call. It could be writing something. It could be anything. And you, you waste like an hour, two hours, multiple hours. And then you walk away or you, you like put in some beats or frequencies or something.
And you're like, I'm doing it. I've got to get it done. And then you go read it the next day or you look at it the next day, or you, you know, evaluate it the next day. And you're like, this is garbage. This is garbage. I don't even want it. I'm just, it's a waste of time. That's because when you sat down to do whatever it was, you weren't inspired, you weren't energized, you weren't tapping into creativity, you weren't tapping into fun.
It was something you had to do. So what if we did more of what we want to do, and we helped kids to do more of what they want to do? And again, kids don't always know what they want, especially based on their age and their exposure, but what if we are able to expose them to things and, and rate their creativity, their fun, their inspiration, their joy, and talk to them about, hey, Hey, You seemed like you had a lot of fun out there, you, you seemed like you were really like using your creative juices, using your brain, you, you, you really looked inspired, like, how do you feel?
Tell me more. Because I would love for you to focus on this if this is what you really, really, really enjoy. There's another reason I'm bringing this up this idea of creativity and fun because I have a theory and this is my theory This is my fucking opinion. You can agree if you if you don't that's okay, too I've been working on figuring out my values for years Years years years and I have never stopped even when I was just like I just feel like it's nothing is clicking You'd be surprised how difficult it could it could be to figure out who you are at your core Primarily because we get diluted from all the things we're supposed to be.
We, you know, we change trajectories of our lives. We change who we are for other people. To get ahead. To do what we're supposed to do. To create what we think is success. So a lot of us get away from our true authentic self. And so that's why it's so hard for people to figure out their values. There are some people that are like, I have no idea what I like.
I don't know who I am at my core. I don't know. And that's okay, but it's going to take some work to get there. But the moral of the story is, is that the more that I thought about my values, my values, my values, I started to realize that the things that I truly, truly, really valued were the things that allowed me to step into my creativity, my very real and raw creativity.
And have fun. That's why I'm on these podcasts, and that's why I do them alone sometimes, because, you know, if Dr. Nick's busy, it's like, this is so much fun for me. This allows me to live in my value of leadership and teaching, and those are my values. But I know that they're my values because they're connected to creativity and fun.
And I think, again, I think, this is my opinion, I think that when we remove creativity and fun out of our lives, life feels pretty shitty. It feels heavy. It doesn't feel fun. It doesn't, that's obviously redundant, but it just doesn't feel good. You know, when people get to be creative in whatever way that it is for them, and they get to laugh, and they get to just be playful, and not worry about all the things they need to do.
Like, that is when you see someone's true spirit. You see, you see something that you don't normally see. You know, I, I see my sister sometimes, and she's one of those people that she's like, I don't know what my values are. And that girl, you wanna have a party? That girl will come. And like, she doesn't care if anybody pays her.
She will decorate the shit out of your house. Mainly kids parties. Like, she will go all out. Decorate, make sure that every detail is covered, and like, she is in her creativity to create the most, most magical experience for a kid's party, birthday, whatever it is. And, it's like you see her light up in a way that you, don't see her light up normally.
And it's so much fun for her. Like, you know, I always ask people the question, if you're independently wealthy, you do not need to earn a living. Like what would you do? And some people can answer that question easily. And some people can't. That girl would easily do those parties for free. If she's just independently wealthy, didn't need to pay a mortgage and all of that because she loves it.
She's creative and she's having a ton of fun. So I invite you to think about it for yourself. And I invite you to think about it for your kids. Or ask them, you know, have a, have more, you know, thought provoking questions at, at dinnertime or the next time you guys are making s'mores outside or, or something.
Because is this really about, you know, are kids going to be the most well rounded because they know how to play an instrument, they know how to sing, they know how to dance, they know how to play sports, they, they're, they're intellectually, you know, book smart. Is that what's going to give them a more fulfilled life?
If they have no fun and no creativity, are they really going to be happy? Are they really going to have a great life? Are they going to, are they going to have the skills that they need in order to have wealth, to have abundance, to have a beautiful relationship with a partner, to have a family? You know, if we really stripped everything away and we only focused on the things that would help kids to have when they're adults, have a life that they have the, Financial intellect to build a business or build wealth with minimal output.
They know how to invest and manage their money. They know how to communicate and talk with others. They have emotional intelligence. They know. That there is a thing called love languages in order to meet their loved ones and partner where they're at. They gain leadership skills in order to be, you know, the best in business and the best parent.
Do we need to learn the rest? You know, is it, is the Pythagoras theorem, you know, laws of relativity, like, are those things that are making or breaking people's lives? You know, obviously, depending on your trade, certain subjects will be more important, but I think it's very alarming how many kids nowadays, they have no ability to function in real life.
They don't know how to have a conversation. They are scared of confrontation. They have no leadership skills. They just follow the status quo and what they're being told. They think that the textbook is the end all be all. They have poor health. They have no idea about how to create any level of financial, I don't even want to say financial freedom, financial stability.
for themselves. You know, they think that if they just go to school, go to college and, you know, do all the things they're supposed to do, check all the boxes, that, you know, they'll be okay. And guess whose house they're at? They're at yours. They're parents. And then they leave, and then they come back, and then they leave, and then they come back.
You know, having kids, being able to support your kids is amazing. And giving them opportunity is amazing. But there is a difference between opportunity and dependency. And there is a difference between them using you as a security blanket. You know, I didn't have that and it was very frustrating as a kid when I observed other people who had it and I didn't but I realized that is one of the reasons why I've had the levels of success that I've had and I also have the level of perseverance that I do because I never expected anyone to save me.
I knew that it was, it was on me. It was me and my choices. And no one gives a shit. No one, no one's gonna feel bad for me. So why feel bad for myself? I might as, that's just a waste of time and energy in my opinion. So I might as well better myself to change the trajectory of my life cause no one's doing it for me.
And if we can help kids to understand that. They're going to be a lot better. I don't even know what to call this podcast guys, because there's so many things that we talked about. So yeah, I hope you enjoyed it. I hope they're, you know, this was thought provoking and I hope it opens some dialogue at your, you know, family get togethers dinner.
It could be dinner tonight. But creativity and fun. Let's not take that away from our kids and let's put it back in our lives. All right. See you next time.
