Eps 203: Dr.Rob Reiher digs into parenting above the noise

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Casey O'Roarty 0:00
Mama, Angie says that Casey o'rourdy gets it. She gave joyful courage five stars. Reading this book is like getting parenting advice from a trusted friend. She knows what you're going through, she doesn't make you feel bad about it, and she wants the best for you and your family. I'm a longtime fan of the joyful courage podcast, so I was happy to see that the book is just as authentic, smart and full of aha moments as the podcast. I've taken away so many strategies to help me form a closer connection to my children and help us stay sane as we navigate life together. Thank you so much, Angie, and to all of you, if you love joyful courage, if you are interested in listening to joyful courage the audiobook, it's happening. It's happening. The audiobook will be available through audible come September. So please stay connected. Stay tuned for more details. Bow, bow, bow. Hey podcast listeners, welcome to joyful courage. I'm so glad that you're here and listening. Joyful courage is a conscious parenting podcast, a place where I like to bring information and inspiration to the parenting journey. I'm your host, Casey Casey o'rourdy, I am a positive discipline trainer. I'm a parent coach, but most importantly, I am a fellow traveler on the journey of parenting. I am thrilled, thrilled, thrilled that you're listening in. The show is all about stepping into the personal growth and development that is always waiting for us here in this era of being mothers, of being fathers, of loving the kids that we have while staying lovingly detached from what's showing up in their lives. I know that sounds weird, right? Being detached Tonya, it'll change your life if you can do it. The show is designed to offer you guidance. You can take it, you can leave it. It's a buffet of information. Just listen, right? Just listen. Create your own value. Listen for nuggets that land for you. And if something doesn't just leave it behind, it's all good. I would love to know what you think. I have many communities that you can join. You can follow me on Instagram or Facebook. You can join in the conversation at live and love with joyful courage on Facebook, or joyful courage for parents of teenagers on Facebook. So I love to be in conversation with my listeners, knowing what's going on in your life, and bringing some of what you desire most challenges that you are currently facing, bringing them onto the podcast, bringing them into these conversations, so that I can be in service to you. I really hope that you enjoy this show, and I'm confident that you will. Hi podcast listeners. My guest today is Dr Rob ryer. Rob is a highly respected developmental and educational psychologist. He is a media expert who studies the escalating impact of technology, media and consumerism and its accompanying noise on children, families and societies. Also Rob has extensive experience as a researcher, counselor, speaker, consultant and educator as an adjunct professor of psychology at Woodbury University in Burbank, California, Rob created and taught the first entertainment course in the country. Rob has written two books and is the co author with Daniel Acuff of kidnapped, how irresponsible marketers are stealing the minds of your children. He's also the co host of the above the noise Podcast. I'm thrilled to have Rob on to support us in developing tools for this landscape of parenting. Hi Rob. Welcome to the

podcast.

So glad that you're here.

Dr. Rob Reiher 4:19
I'm glad.

Casey O'Roarty 4:20
Yeah. Will you share a little bit about your journey of doing what you do with the listeners?

Dr. Rob Reiher 4:26
Yeah. So the first thing I'd like to tell your listeners is, I am not a parent, and there's a there's something I think that I can bring to the party here because of the other places I've been that I've been allowed to be and have had the time to dip into because of the freedom I was offered over a period of time. And so I'd like to approach it from two places. I've been in the classroom and I've been in the boardroom, and for the last 45 years. And that's given me a perspective to say, okay, what are they doing in business? What are they up to over there, and what are the kids doing? So in my classroom experience, it's been all the way from elementary school to high school to Cal State University's special diagnostic school, working with educationally handicapped, working with heroin addicts and meth addicts, and also working with handicapped kids that are blind and have severe disabilities, as well as extremely, extremely creative people at art colleges that are like super creatives. So it's it's been beautiful in the sense that it's been that full range, all the way from elementary school through the university and with all different types of students. And that's been sort of the background to what fascinated me 45 years ago, which is, how do these students make great choices and bad choices. And the other part of that had to do with, I think we've all had this experience where, you know, you go to a reunion from high school or something, and you, you know, you walk, you walked out of the reunion going, Wow. You know, Mabel was the the prom queen, but she's gained 145 pounds, and it's like, I wonder what choices she's making would run through my mind that allowed that, or somebody that I respected as a student body president is now in prison or in jail, and all those kinds of behaviors and past experiences got me very, very interested in what makes a good chooser or a bad chooser and how that changes over

Casey O'Roarty 6:46
time. Yeah, I am fascinated by that as well. I think the human experience is so rich, and there's so many layers and so many dynamics when it comes to the relationships that we experience and the dynamics in in you know, the way the world works for us, and you know where we've experienced failure and how we make sense of it. So today we're talking specifically around parenting during this period of time where there's so much noise. So tell me about how and you and your co host at the above the noise podcast, you, I'm guessing you saw a need there, right? You saw a need there and wanted to support families. So what were you seeing that motivated you to create that podcast. And you know, can you kind of tease apart what noise means to you Sure?

Dr. Rob Reiher 7:45
Well, first of all, the podcast is called live above the noise. Oh, my,

Casey O'Roarty 7:50
sorry. My notes are poor. Thank you. And

Dr. Rob Reiher 7:53
and what was happening is starting 2025, 35 years ago, that was a question that I asked myself. Is like, how do you not get stuck in dimensions of life that don't facilitate your growth? It doesn't matter what age you are, and one of the things I loved about your languaging Casey is when you mentioned the concept of conscious parenting, because you don't hear that a lot with different parenting groups there, that word has always been a tricky word for me, like, what does that mean to be a conscious parent? And that's been sort of the journey that I've been on, which is trying to understand conscious ness, the idea what makes a person conscious, what are the core components? And there is a science of that, and there is a science of choosing I believe, and of course, it's the kind of thing that I intend to spend the rest of my life investigating and building upon. But there is so much currently in place to that we can understand with regard to what are the core elements that are related to consciousness, and why is consciousness so important, and especially in today's age of noise. So to your question of noise, we think of it at the live above the noise as basically, it's distraction, it's distortion, it's disruption, and it's overload, it's those four components of information coming into the system. And so that raises an issue, because what's happened, in my opinion, over the last 20 years is we as a culture, and especially parents, I believe, were blindsided, completely blindsided. And what I mean by that is when the digital error was introduced in the late 90s, and then by the time 2007 rolled around, everybody had a smartphone. And now I just noticed today, when I was working now that the gym nine. Nine out of 10 people at the gym are on their smartphone and you go, okay, that's got to have major trade offs. What? What are the trade offs? And what do parents need to understand? Because there's something in the field of psychology called JND, which is just noticeable difference, and that's a psychophysics term that says, you typically the way the human being is wired, they typically don't notice small things occurring, you know, over time, that are spread out, that are subtle. What they do notice is the the earthquake, the hurricane, the big stuff that happens, but when the little stuff is happening, day by day, year by year, and then pretty soon, 20 years later, you find you have a planet addicted to their smartphone, and you're saying, how, how did that happen? Well, it's been happening, and it's been it's been happening intentionally for the last 20 years slowly, and it's still happening intentionally, and we know that Stanford University has a department of persuasive technology that has psychologists on staff designing manipulative and addictive Technology. Some of it's good, and some of it is what got us in the trouble that we're in now. And admittedly, the founders of Google and Facebook and others, other people that worked on that said, You know what, we're sorry. We changed the human brain. We rewired you, we apologize. It's too late and we didn't know what we were doing at the time, and and they admittedly said that, you know, and so you're going, okay, so nice. Thanks for the apology, exactly. So that's where we are now. We're in a completely different, noise based situation that will only get worse, much worse. I don't even think we've begun to see what's going to happen. If you pay attention to Wired Magazine, they'll keep you pretty much up to date to breakthroughs and technologies and how things are shifting and becoming more more deadly in a sense, than they are. Like even this morning, I was reading about Peg Leg bio hackers, and that's the new inserting with an operation, placing a computer in their leg and becoming walking around now with implanted technology in their body. And that's a group of people that, admittedly, or I think they're they call themselves grinders, which is their nickname, but they're advanced techies that say, you know, that are entrepreneurs that you know. Some of them say, we're out to change the world in a good way. Other ones don't know exactly how things are going to change, but they keep pushing the bar, raising the bar, and moving it faster than our human brain will ever be able to adapt to it. And so we find ourselves in a situation right now where it's it's just escalating and accelerating. And for a parent, or for anybody they're going to set they're in a position right now to say, okay, with all these things going on, all these things I'm supposed to learn as a parent, and all the preparation I'm supposed to be responsible for, what is it that I have to pay attention to the most? Like, where? Where's the big thing that out of all of it that I have to be aware of, and that's a that's a heck of a question. Well,

Casey O'Roarty 13:46
it is. And when I think about you used the word blindsided, and when I remember back in like, I think it was about 2008 when my girlfriend was telling me about this really cool website where you could store photos and share photos, and it's so fun, and it's called Facebook. And I was like, I don't really know how to work that. I'm not really sure about that. And then I got on there and I realized, holy cow, this thing was made for me. Man, I love this. This is awesome. Connecting with old friends and just having this place, you know, as I was home with two young kids, and it can feel both overwhelming and painfully slow at the same time, you know. And I thought this is really cool. And I think that, you know, the blind side comes, not only with navigating our kids and their use, but also our cues, like I'm the first I mean my kids and I, we look at we look at our screen time, and I'm not any better than they are in numbers when it comes to how much time we're spending on our phone. So on one hand, I think it's really important everything you're saying and being informed. And really understanding the bigness of this problem, and I have to be super transparent as I listen to you talk, it kind of gives me the same experience that I have in my body when I think about how much plastic is in the ocean, and I think about the state of our planet, and it feels so big that it makes me want to stick my head in the sand.

Dr. Rob Reiher 15:21
Yeah, you're not alone. I mean, that's basically what most people feel it's pretty common because it is overwhelming. It's a word age of overwhelm right now, and I, you know, and there's so many variables that it's like, well, what, where do I start? Is the question, you know,

Casey O'Roarty 15:38
yeah, so Rob,

Dr. Rob Reiher 15:42
okay, let's Yeah, what are the major trade offs that are the biggest trade offs that parents and everyone is making? Yeah, can we get that down to the science of what's going on with trade offs? Because we understand the brain enough to understand how the brain gets addicted, and how it gets hooked, and how dopamine works, and the architecture and all those dimensions of the brain. So the first thing that I think that parents should really, really pay attention to is the brain that there's the behavior is three dimensional, always, and you forget that so many parents think of it in terms of the psychology of psychology of my child. So if, if you are not paying attention to the fact that it is biology, psychology and social culture, combination of three things, always, all the time. You forget. You have a tendency to forget that. Well, then what is happening to to us? What is happening? Well, we're because of the biological component. We're we're being rewired constantly, and then and to the degree that outside input is dominating inside, kind of abilities, and pause

Casey O'Roarty 17:03
you right there, just because you are neck deep in this and the rest of us are just regular old parents. So talk to me a little bit about like what you just said, that biology, that that, that we're being rewired. So what does that look like in practical terms? Is that, you know the fact that every time if I have my phone in my pocket and it vibrates, I can't not look or no, what does that mean? That rewiring? Well,

Dr. Rob Reiher 17:31
what it really means is, if you understand you're being rewired, then your choice situation is different. You understand that, how do I you can ask yourself, How do I want to be rewired? Do I want to be rewired toward well being? Or do I want to be rewired in any way that the wires want me to be rewired? So when I said I was in the boardroom as well as in the classroom, my boardroom experience for 40 years with every major company on this planet, you know, whether it's Spielberg or Lucas or Nike or any of them, was never in that 40 year period, did I ever hear anyone in any boardroom, meeting, or in Any group ever express the concern for a child I it

just never happened. And it was like and my intention of entering that arena in the first place was to see if I could shift anybody's ideas about human development, ages and stages, so that they would understand how that works and what's good and what's not good for children. Not interested. Get education out of the mix. We don't want we don't talk about education here. We talk about stockholders and money. That's it. So if you know that that's all going on on that level. No, they're not interested in well being at all, and the wiring is taking place based on what they are selling, promoting and developing then, then a decision has to be made of, okay, what's good technologically and what isn't good. And how do I make decisions about that? Like, for example, I have a I have an eye watch, and I also have,

Casey O'Roarty 19:26
you are brave man, I could not do it. I would be a disaster for me.

Dr. Rob Reiher 19:32
And I'm sort of a techie, in the sense that I'm always looking for the latest stuff. But I, I, I have a reason for having the eye watch, right? You know, which is to use it for a number of things, and given my past, which what allowed me to transition out of the boardroom forever and write the book, kidnapped, how irresponsible marketers are stealing the minds of your children, which will get you out of that poor group as fast as possible. And that was the intention of the title of the book. I started to notice a breakdown in health, breakdown in well being, and I went through a period of time where not only did I have a heart problem, I had cancer. And I'm going like, wow, what's going on in terms of the choices that you're making in that world, that's those circles of influence around you. How do you have to shift those and that? That brings me to why I would use an iWatch or a computer or some other element that would give me advantages in improving my health. So that's there, you know? And there's some great stuff. And I'm not anti tech, but I am very much in favor of discriminating what choices that technology offers that help you develop your own well being

Casey O'Roarty 20:52
well. And even as I listen to I'm thinking to myself, my own use of technology and the choices that we have. And you know, we have choices around. Do we get notifications that bling and light up our phones or not? Do we decide that when we leave the house we bring the technology with us or not? Do we decide that there are sacred times when technology is not allowed at the table, right? So when you're talking about this is where I go, when I think about the choices that we have around the technology, is that kind of, yeah, following, yeah, okay.

Dr. Rob Reiher 21:32
Because the big three for me are time tech and touch. If you keep those three in mind and and you say, how is technology altering my use of time and moving it from being in well in states of well being, out of states of well being, and how is the touch or the relationship issue of my life being affected? But those are the keys, you know. And if we know the technology is moving forward at a faster clip than we're able to address it, then what's going to be happening, and is happening is the mind will not keep up, and the manipulators and the people that are not only creating some of the tech, but are also deciding what it is that you're going to pay attention to will keep doing that for you unless you figure it out like I don't have to do that. I can use my time a different way. I can use it, and I have to set that up because of what's happening around me. In the circles of influence around me have radically changed. It used to be family, you know, self at the middle, family next, and then media and technology and friends and so forth. It's now become dominated by media and technology, and it's creating the brain in its way that it wants to wire it. And the brain is very susceptible to reinforcement and pleasure and dopamine and feeling good. So they know how to do that. They know how to make you feel good, and it's better required in that way.

Casey O'Roarty 23:07
So what about so you talked about biology, the three different pieces of behavior. So the biology piece, the psychology piece and the social, cultural piece. So talk to me about the psychology piece. Okay,

Dr. Rob Reiher 23:19
so then, if we look at psychology, and we say, my opinion of what has happened is, if we take higher brain functions, executive functions, and we say, there's we know what they are. We know what the science of those 10 or 11 functions are, what we're trying to accomplish by developing higher brain executive functions, and several of those functions, several of those key functions, are being placed in jeopardy because we have a choice to be either on the outside of ourself or on the inside. We can either pay attention to external factors or internal factors. So my experience in the classroom at all ages and stages has been the internal part of my life, or the internal part of students life, which should be naturally emerged from the earliest levels of childhood, imagination, freedom, exploring my creativity, that's been shifted to the outside part of my life, and it's replaced the inside. So the whole idea of stimulus control is taking the place of internal kinds of causal control from the internal side of things. So now the stimulus control dominates. Okay,

Casey O'Roarty 24:46
hold on. I want to. I want to. I want to tease that apart in regular person terms. So I notice something that I notice is I have a 13 year old son and a 16 year old daughter, and they both have favorite YouTubers. So. Yeah, and what I notice is that they spend a lot of time watching other people doing things, whether it's stupid things or not stupid things. I mean, whether it, you know, it's some of it's really creative, some of it's really, like, healthy risk taking, like, I can appreciate the creativity and the work that the kids that are YouTubing like the people they're watching are putting into what they're creating, most of them, not all of them. And then I look at my kids and how they're consuming that, versus being creators themselves, absolutely. Is that what you're talking about here.

Dr. Rob Reiher 25:42
That's stimulus control from the outside, or cognitive control from the inside. That's so think of it as a think of it as a horizontal line going across the middle of a piece of paper. Put a ping pong ball or a marble right in the center of that line, and say communication can either go to the right, which is out, or it can go to the left, which is in cognitive control, is when you're in charge of the communication, and that's on the inside, and the other side is to be drawn out of yourself to the outside control. Now, what's so fascinating about this, and what really got me excited about this whole idea of how the mind can either work from the inside or from the outside. Is if you look at people that were extraordinary in in life, and you say, I want to I want to understand how Nelson Mandela stayed in prison 27 years. How did he do that? In a seven foot by seven foot cell, he did something and then comes out of the cell and becomes president of South Africa. How? How do you do that? You know, or, or the Viktor Frankl discussion of being in a concentration camp and saying everyone around me was dying. Except there is a secret to this, and there is a way that you don't based on your cognitive control, based on what you're saying to yourself, how you're processing your information on the inside, but if you give that up in favor of the youtubers on the outside, and your brain is being rewired at the same time you're making a huge, huge trade off. And in fact, there's a great book out that I highly recommend, that I love these guys, Joe Clement and Matt miles, have a book called Screen schooled. And I highly recommend this book. And I'll tell you why. Is what struck me. In toward the end of the book, Joe was talking about his classroom of high school kids, and they're teachers. They've been teachers for 25 years, and they're on the inside of watching this happen, yeah, and they said, We I see it more than the parents do, because the parents get conned by the students that are in my room and the students in my room are laughing at how they're conning their parents. And he said it's a nightmare for a student to leave the classroom, to go to the restaurant without putting earbuds in to keep him distracted for the four or five minutes that he leaves, and that to ask a child to sit silently and quietly is virtually impossible. Now, in think about that, and I know that you've had discussions on your podcast here about meditation and mindfulness, when you think about what's happened, that it's impossible for people, especially younger people, to be quiet, to understand what's going on on the inside of them and to process that and enjoy that. That's a tragedy. Yeah, that's where it's that's where it's at. That's That's where the future is, that's where your success is. It's all in the internal cognitive control that you have to develop over a period of time. So if you start losing that early, and the brain rewires itself so that you can't even stand yourself being quiet, holy cow, that's that's a major, major issue on this planet, and I think one of the most important issues there is right now, which is, how do you get people to understand how important those two dimensions are, stimulus control, or internal cognitive control? And we've lost the internal cognitive control, well,

Casey O'Roarty 29:38
and do you so those are, I mean, do you feel like we're there's no, like the windows closed?

Dr. Rob Reiher 29:45
No, no, I don't.

Unknown Speaker 29:48
That is bleak. No,

Dr. Rob Reiher 29:49
it is bleak. It is bleak. But I have a, I have a favorite expression, by the way, for people that do have closed the window, I call them. Nanas. You know, there's a lot of nanas, including one of the biggest Nana on the planet is in charge of our country.

Casey O'Roarty 30:09
Oh, geez. And do we dare go there? So

Dr. Rob Reiher 30:16
Nana, to me, is a person that is not aware that they are not aware, a non up, right? And there's a there's a lot of people that just basically don't understand that awareness is the key. Don't want to be aware. Don't want to take the time and energy. It's sort of like the difference between the concept of happiness and the concept of well being. The completely different concepts, to me is, well,

Casey O'Roarty 30:42
and don't you think not aware that you're not aware. I mean, when you think, when we take this into, you know, talking about adolescence, I mean, that's like the lay of the land, right? I wouldn't. I mean, I know, for me, in my own experience awareness, and when I and when I talk about consciousness and conscious parenting. It's really about exactly that, being aware of what I'm doing when I'm doing it, and if I can aim for more likely than not, I'm winning. That's right. There's no perfect I'm still gonna get distracted. There's still gonna be moments where I get hijacked by my own triggers and my own stuff. But the, you know? And that's something that I say to parents, too, when they come and they say, Oh, God, I really screwed up, and I did this thing, and it was a total parent fail. And I say, actually, you knowing that you screwed up is a win.

Dr. Rob Reiher 31:34
Absolutely. That's beautiful, you know. And that's, that's what intrigued me about the fact that you are using the word conscious, because that's what it's all about, is understanding how you think about your own thinking, and how you have that possibility and the alternative then to change it. So that's fantastic to be a conscious parent. I can't say enough about that word. I love that fact, and I have the experience by the way of not just talking about this or thinking about it or reading about it. I spent 25 years sitting in four and five day retreats at a Zen Center that all I did for five days straight and 16 hours a day was ask myself one question I had a choice to enter each time I did this every year or twice a year, I could pick the question. So I picked the question like, you know, what is love? What is life? What is God? What is another, you know, what is beauty? I had the choice of any question. But then once I picked the question, I could sit on that question and reflect on that question, 16 hours a day for four or five days straight, and I'd have a person opposite me in a dyad that would help me, and they'd say, Tell me your question. I would say, What is life? They'd say, tell me what life is. Then I would have 20 minutes to just get quiet, go down into the well, see what showed up, what started to happen, and what I noticed after doing this like couple times a year for 25 years, there's a there's something that's there's the exact same pattern that happened every single time, which is the first night, chatter, chatter, chatter, Oh, I hate this. My back hurts, my butt hurts. I don't want to be here, you know. What am I doing this for? You know, I go through all the, all of that chatter in my head, you know. And but I'm committed, you know. So my choice is, I will, I will work this out. And then the second day it gets less, and the third day, it's, it's you settle into a completely different kind of space of understanding and relationships with others in the room. And so it just the chatter gets out of the way. You get tired of hearing yourself talk about yourself and who you are, and all your all your stuff, and it just gets less and less and less. That's meditation. Mindfulness are designed to get you to do that, to learn how to do that, and get the stuff out of the way that has no benefit to you and that gets in the way of your well being. But it's a for some people, it's a much shorter process. They don't have the time to do that. So I had the advantage to be able to do that, watch it and watch it and watch it for 25 years in a row, and say, yep, here's the way it works. You know, this is exactly the same pattern every single time. So it's the internal dialog that if you don't pay attention to that. You can't change it,

Casey O'Roarty 34:42
right? And if I have an earbud in all the time, I can't even hear my internal dialog, that's right? I just feel like, if there's no other tools that we have in the parenting world on the parenting journey, if we can teach ourselves how to get quiet. It and sift through all the garbage that shows up because our three year olds having a tantrum, or our 16 year old is flipping us off, if we can just sit with it and really get clear on bigger questions, like, you know, what do I want most right now? My typically that question leads me to connection always. It's a reminder of like, right? So I can respond to this in a in a really angry or dismissive, or, you know, humiliated, way, and it's going to have an effect on connection. Or I can come at this from a different place of curiosity and openness and wonder and love, and it's going to affect the connection that I have with my child a different way, and either way. You know, I mean, if, ultimately, we're either adding the kindling to the fire or we're dampening the fire down, people, so just recognizing and again, coming back to being aware, right? Being aware and being conscious that of what you're doing when you're doing it. Hey, hi. I know that you're enjoying this episode, and I just wanted to jump in so that you knew that I have a really special program that's open for registration right now. Joyful courage Academy parenting teens is coming back, and it will be running september 30 through November. 1 I heard your needs, and I'm going to actually run two different tracks of the program. One track will be for parents with kids ages 11 through about 1314, kind of that middle school age, and another track will be for parents with older teens, 14 plus, right? So I'm going to do two tracks included in the program. I've extended it out to a five week. Instead of a four week, it's now a five week program. You will get at the beginning of each week a link to a webinar slash video, delivering the content both audio and video. This round, you will have access and be encouraged to engage in a supportive community of other like minded parents with kids who are similar ages, of your kids going through similar challenges, learning the same content as you also. Another thing I've done this round is I've upped the one on one time so each participant in the program will be able to book a 90 minute call with me to talk specifically about what's happening inside of your relationship with your teen or pre teen. Such an amazing program. I've gotten such great feedback the last few rounds that I've done it. I'm so excited. So I want you to head on over to the website and check out all the information you can go to. Joyful courage.com/j, c, a, p t, that's joyful courage.com/j. C A, P T, that'll get you more information. And the link to register. I can only hold so many spots, and they're starting to fill up, so make sure you head over there, check it out and sign up. All right. Back to the show. All right, so now move into the So, and I'm thinking that this social, this third piece of behavior being that social, cultural piece. So that's really the influence right of the outside world? Yeah,

Dr. Rob Reiher 38:35
exactly. And we have one way to think about is you have circles of influence that are that surround you. And if those, if you understand what they are and you're you're clear about the priorities. So if you start with the self in the middle, then the family, then the friends, then media, then concentric circles, technology, education, work, career, community, society, ending up in the circle of wisdom, and you say to yourself, how do I get through the other circles to get to the point over my lifetime of being wiser than I am now? How can I increase my wisdom? So decisions have to be made about that, like, which circles am I going to allow to dominate my consciousness and my ability to increase my self reflective skills. Which ones get in the way? How do I arrange my time in ways where I can maximize the time I spend on my cognitive strengths and my internal world, and that's one of the when you were talking about parents, that's a hard one if you've never done it. Because even you know, some people say, Well, do five minutes of meditation. And I, I've taken people up to this retreat, but the way that have been so blown away by. I what it takes to sit quietly that they've, they've essentially hitchhiked home after one day and said, Look, you're here four days. I'm I'm out of here. This is insane,

Casey O'Roarty 40:11
right? Too much, right? It's too much.

Dr. Rob Reiher 40:15
But if you know that this is, this is is good for you, this is what wellness is all about, is thinking about your thinking. Then at least you can build it in to your schedule and say, Okay, this. I gotta do more of this.

Casey O'Roarty 40:30
I actually have talked to parents and my own experience with and I've never studied meditation. I would like to it just hasn't presented itself in a way that I could take advantage of so I'm kind of a self taught girl, and I had a friend, and I said, you know, I really, really want to create this meditation practice, but I have such a hard time sitting with an empty mind. And she said, case it's not about sitting with an empty mind, meditation is about noticing when your mind wanders and just coming back to your breath. And that was so useful to me, because all of a sudden it went from I fail at this, to every time I came back to breath, it was a little pleasure point of, oh, look at me. I'm strengthening this muscle. And I had an early episode with Giovanni. I can't think of his last name, but it was one of my earlier episodes on mindfulness. He's from the Austin mindfulness Institute, and he talked about how, you know, we go to the gym to strengthen our muscles so that we can be strong in our lives, so that we can run around after our kids, so that we can do the things we want to do, and we meditate, not so that we can become better meditators, but so that we can be more mindful out in the world, in our life. And I really that really stuck with me, and I really appreciated that, as far as you know, creating the practice, yeah, for me, if I can do 20 minutes, I'm like, Oh yes, I yeah,

I am really killing the meditation, yeah, let alone five days, which I totally see the value in that. Where do you go? Where's the place that you go? Just say it

Dr. Rob Reiher 42:16
well for and the other thing that I love about technology is that there are some phenomenal apps that will allow you to do this. If you're the kind of person that says, I don't know how to do this, you could put your earbuds in, and you could set the app to do to help you learn how to do that. And that's a no brainer, and those things are available to you just like, like I said on the iWatch, there's a pause button, and I tap the pause button 20 times a day, and it says, Okay, we're going to do a little one minute breathing exercise right now. And those kinds of tools like that are available. That's the good tech stuff,

Casey O'Roarty 42:56
you know? Well, that's you making a choice, exactly. Yeah,

Dr. Rob Reiher 43:00
and brain, I can recommend an app for people with iPhones called Brainwave. It gives you 30, I think 32 different ways to use a brainwave, and you can set different times and adapt it to your personal style, but it goes all the way from deep sleep to a power nap to stress to creativity, different brainwave patterns will reorient your brain in a certain way. So brainwave is a great app available on iPhones.

Casey O'Roarty 43:35
Cool. I love Insight Timer. I'm an Insight Timer girl, too. I use that app quite a bit, and they have guided meditations. But they also have where you can set a timer and you can add bells. It's useful to me to have bells sometimes, just to kind of that if I'm not really on top of my noticing the wandering, the bell definitely brings me back to being aware of my awareness, for sure. So I mean, we've painted this picture, and we're all living it, so we really know, and listeners, you know, we'd all like to pretend that this isn't a big deal, and it is a big deal. And so where do you go? Then, when you know people are listening like, okay, great, great, Rob and Casey, I recognize that we're making unconscious choices a lot of the day. How do we support parents in supporting themselves and their kids around that? You know, I think the most powerful thing that's come out of this conversation is really the learning of being aware of our awareness, I think that's kind of

Dr. Rob Reiher 44:42
the big that's the big one right there. And there's ways to do that, lots of different ways to do that, but that's the thing that is dissipating in society, and it's happening younger and younger, and to the degree that younger children are involved in digital devices. They are training the brain earlier, not to be aware of their awareness. So put the devices away,

Casey O'Roarty 45:05
or be conscious about what you're doing with the device

Dr. Rob Reiher 45:09
exactly, or use it in new ways. You know that that support well being, because you're not going to get rid of the devices everybody knows like don't even you become the bad guy and but you can do some really interesting things and use, for example, entertainment, which you mentioned earlier, yes, is a technique. It's it's a methodology that says this. It says we all know what entertainment is, and we know that Matt and Joe and the guys that are writing about school, the teachers are saying that kids are spending 93% of their time on their screens being entertained. That's a staggering number, nine hours a day, 93% of their time in the world of entertainment. Now imagine what that's doing to rewiring the brain. So the alternative to that is, and if it there is a way to use to change entertainment into entertainment, which means entertainment is a rich, rich, rich area to explore your inner world, if you can translate it in such a way that you understand how to ask your child, the questions, the the questions that are indirect. They're not direct. They're not making them wrong. They're not saying, Stop doing that. Don't do this bad, bad entertainment. It's

Casey O'Roarty 46:42
good because that does not go over well with teenagers, not at all.

Dr. Rob Reiher 46:45
And in fact, they're going to protect the fact that this is my territory. Don't go in it. You know, this is what I like. These are my choices, my identity. So don't mess with me, however indirectly, if, if the questions are asked in new ways about what makes that character that you love so much, so appealing? What does he possess? Being able to understand characters, stories, the keys that are underneath the hero's journey, how they succeeded, how they failed. What different kinds of value systems are built into the characters, the character dynamics, the sidekicks. There's a wealth of possibility in in terms of training the inner self reflective skills using the outside entertainment modality. So there's that's what Entertainment's about, is taking entertainment and not don't make it wrong, but let's translate it into something that is can create more awareness in your child about who they are and who the entertainer is, and what it is that I'm connected to and why I identify with that particular behavior or don't. What's in it? For me, there's such a rich, rich, rich area of understanding that can be used, because that's it's here to stay. It you know, they're already involved. Now the question is, can you create a story team, for example, in your home that's able to start that process at the earliest possible ages by reading stories, and then eventually, as the child is able to understand more about the stories, understand the character in the story, and then what makes that character a good character? What character do you like why do you like them? What is that character stand for? What? It's just an unfolding process of using stories and entertainment in new ways that I call entertainment.

Casey O'Roarty 48:54
I love that, and I often will tell clients, you know, when they're working on something with their younger kids or older kids, you know, and they're watching movies or TV shows, and they're, you know, to pay attention to the characters and to notice, you know, oh, wow, did you see how they they just solved that problem. That was a really creative way of solving that problem. I think when our kids become teenagers, and I know a lot of my listeners have are parents of teens, and I can hear the I can hear their inner dialog right now going, Well, yeah, that's all great if your teenager will talk to you. So I think that you know, I'm just gonna point out and listeners I know will not be surprised to hear me say this is if you're unable to have a conversation around technology right now with your teenagers, then take a step back from that and just start to build and nurture relationship. Because I think that when kids move into the teenage years, there's so many different dynamics that occur, and they start to become. You know, they don't trust us. They don't trust us to not judge them. I think there's some levels of, you know, I think well intentioned parents, myself included, feel like, Hey, listen, I lived through this already, so I have some knowledge. But as a teenager receiving that, it feels like you don't think I know anything. You didn't think I can handle this, so screw you. I'm just going to shut you out. And so I think that if you're listening to this and you're like, Well, this is all well and good, but it's really hard for me to have conversations with my teenagers about technology. You know, I think one place to start is to really start with like, you know, it's really hard for us to talk about your phone, and I'm really curious about that. Tell me about how it feels when I want to talk about our screen time and phone and just like, really coming from a place of curiosity, right, and an openness, so that the space between the that we're creating feels safe for them. And I think that goes along with what you said, like not making them wrong, not having an agenda where everybody's going to just do two hours of screen time a day, which would be great. That would be a stretch for me even. But, you know, I just wanted to throw that out to the people that are listening, because I know that even having the conversation sometimes is really tricky. Any thoughts on that? Yeah,

Dr. Rob Reiher 51:17
I think that's great. And I think indirect communications a little tricky for some people that don't know how to do that, because, you know, the younger the child is, the more direct you have to be, and you know, to have those conversations. So, so one of the things is, the earlier you can begin dealing with the idea of stories, for example, with the younger child than making stories part of your your your dinner conversation, or your bedtime conversation or before bed conversation, at the earliest possible ages, then by the time you get into teens, it's sort of become commonplace where you're You're interested in their stories, your stories, the world stories, and you build story. I think story is one of the most powerful tools we have that's basically not being used very much. And I understand how an older teen will protect their world and their environment and their entertainment. So it's going to be much, much harder if, if you can't incorporate that earlier. But indirect conversation is really a whole other world of asking the right questions based on the you know, ways that are not threatening at all. And I think that's a tool that is not common and also needs to be trained a little bit because it's not that easy to do, especially if you're out of time and you're frustrated, and you say, I'm not going to, you know, spend the time. But I've noticed, you know, like in classrooms, the classroom experience that teaching is, to me, the best way to teach is to ask questions. And in the business world, the same thing is like, if I go into a business meeting, the worst thing I can do is like, play the role of having the answers, as opposed to opening up the conversation to whoever is in that meeting about what those answers might be. So you're right on with regard to screen time, what? What's going on with screen time? Like, how? How does that? How do you think that has to do with some other part of your life, and how do you spend it, and so forth? Is, as long as you can get that door open through questioning. I think that's positive, yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 53:37
well, and I did a show last spring. I think it was where I had both my kids on and we had a very candid conversation about screens and social media and the way that kids are using it. And it was interesting, because I got a lot of feedback from my listeners saying, oh my gosh, it's amazing that you can have these conversations with your kids, and I have to remind them, and I have reminded them, okay, but that's a snapshot of one afternoon where they happen to be really forthcoming and easygoing about this topic, not how it always feels, I mean. And again, I get to check, you know, when I go into a conversation with an agenda. And sometimes this is the conversation around conscious versus unconscious. Sometimes I'm not totally conscious of the fact that I have an agenda, right? But as if I walk in with an agenda, my kids can smell it from a mile away, you know, and my and so really it's they have so much to teach me, and there's so many things that I don't know. And I think that that's the other piece too, for parents that are listening, is when we're being curious, it's really because we don't want to assume, we want a deeper understanding. Of what their connection is to technology in this conversation, or, you know, what their attachment is to it. And so it's just again, you know, plastic in the ocean. It's a little bit like, oh god,

Dr. Rob Reiher 55:15
yeah, overwhelming. I think, I think one of the tricks for communication is to set up the dichotomy of your story their story, whether it's friends at school, and keep that in mind with regard to behavior and what's going on, like, what is, what is that story? Because it's little bit lighter if you think of it as a person's story. And you're also training a little by little to understand that maybe all it is, for a lot of people is that they have, they have all these stories running around, and it's like and half of it's not anything to do with reality or the truth. It's just a story. And in that idea of, you know, like, I do this with my wife, when she worries about her, she has a hair styling salon, and she and, you know that business is up and down, and she's a men's hairstylist, so if she's not getting customers, you know, she comes home, she goes, Wow, I don't know. I don't know what's going on with my business, man, you know, I hear this all the time, and I go, Okay, so let's talk about your story. What's your story? About your business? Oh, well, they're gonna maybe I won't have any customers, you know, it's like, and you get that to your story, right?

Casey O'Roarty 56:38
So you're talking, when you're talking story, you're talking about the story that we create in our mind, about the experiences that we're having. Yeah,

Dr. Rob Reiher 56:45
that too. But what's beautiful about that is a producer, a director, a writer, is doing that also for a piece of entertainment. He's creating the characters and the story and, and you have your story, and they have their story and, and that's the way it is with everybody that's with the children, that's what their friends, that's at school. Everybody's got their story. You know, what's going on their head. This is right. That's wrong. This is we're good. The earlier that you can understand that piece of it like but you have a story with regard to your own children. What's your story? Yeah, and begin

Casey O'Roarty 57:21
many stories Rob. Some of them are more useful than others.

Dr. Rob Reiher 57:27
It's just a valuable concept to keep it light enough to make it fun and not make it too heavy. And same time, it's just it's self reflecting. It's understanding what I'm saying to myself, what I think is, is going on inside me, and how much of it's true or not true, all of that is a deeper well to get into down the road, but it's a great starting point, yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 57:54
well, and I think it speaks into being aware of our awareness, right when we recognize, like, oh, this thing happened. I got cut off, and then I got really mad at the person that cut me off. But in reality, I have no idea what's going on with that person, and there's a very likely chance that they didn't intentionally cut me off. So I can calm down and stories like that and teach your kid not to be a Nana. Yes, please don't be a Nana. That was what we're leaving listeners with, all of you, the biggest piece here is, don't be a Nana and support your kids in developing the tools that they need to not be a Nana as well.

Dr. Rob Reiher 58:34
And I know Casey, you always ask the question of, What do you think joyful courage means to you? Yes,

Casey O'Roarty 58:42
it's going there. Okay, good,

Dr. Rob Reiher 58:45
because it's different than you know, not having children. I could guess what that means if you're a parent, but for a person that isn't a parent like myself, yeah, it's, it's determining, it's using your awareness to find your passion and the courage to fulfill it over time. So keep your awareness engaged in finding your passion and your path, and have the courage with the ups and downs that occur to continue working toward that goal.

Casey O'Roarty 59:18
Love it. Yay. Well, tell the listeners, where can they find you and follow your work, your podcasts, all the things, where are the places that you're at?

Dr. Rob Reiher 59:27
So live above the noise is the podcast, and live above the noise.com and the book I'm working on now is called Future wise, the challenge of choice in the culture of noise. Oh,

Casey O'Roarty 59:44
when does that come out? As soon as you finish, well, we'll be on the lookout. Please be sure to reach out to me when that becomes available. I'd love to have you back on this was such a risk. Conversation, Rob and I feel like we just scratched the surface. Thank you so much for hanging with me with all my technology issues. Listeners, you might not be aware of the technology issues that we did have, but there, there's one at least. Um, but yeah, thank you. Yeah, thank you. Have a beautiful day.

Dr. Rob Reiher 1:00:18
Okay? Casey, thanks again. You

Unknown Speaker 1:00:23
Hey, yay.

Casey O'Roarty 1:00:23
Thanks for listening. I so appreciate every single one of you and the ways that you show up for joyful courage. Thank you. And did you know there are ways that you can give back? I have a Patreon page, which is a place where you basically can donate one, five or $10 towards the sustainability of the program. And you can check that out at patreon.com/joyful. Courage. That's www dot P, A, T, R, E, O n.com/joyful, courage. I have some benefits and bonuses for people that are in my Patreon community, you can also let me know what you think by heading on over to Apple podcasts, leaving me a five star rating and a review. I love to read the reviews on air, so whenever I get a new review, I share it. It really just helps me know what you love about this podcast, what is landing for you? What is useful? Like I mentioned at the top, I am active on Instagram and Facebook, both places you can find me at joyful courage, and please know that you're always welcome to join into my Facebook groups. Live in love with joyful courage as well as joyful courage for parents of teens, yes, yes, yes, yes, we're back in the weekly mode, so I'll be back next week. Can't wait to have you listen again until then, take a deep breath. Follow it into your body. Take a moment to notice what's currently alive for you. Imagine that you can take the balcony seat for a higher perspective of whatever is currently going on in your life and trust that everyone's gonna be okay.

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