Raising Resilient Teens in a Soft, Comfortable World

We need to be holistically tough so that we can handle whatever life throws at you. We need to be more strategic as parents. Things seem hard because we are soft. Can't just be these helpless little babies that can't do anything. We want to be doing things that are so insanely difficult that hard things that come along are like no big deal. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Extraordinary Family Life Podcast. We're your host Greg and Rachel Denning. And today's topic, I think, is one of the most important topics in parenting, hands down, in family life and in life in general. We're talking about soft and squishy, unprepared teens in today's world. When you think back to our grandparents, like they were doing things like going to war. Now today's They come out of the Great Depression. They had experienced want, hard, hard work, and and then war. Like it was brutal. And now today's teens are having a hard time getting a job, right? Or an easy job away to college or on a mission or going to do like like we hear these stories that you think are far-fetched and out there, but they're more common. Like parents are going to apply with their children at job interviews and to go to college with their children and to meet with the adviserss and to help them with their classes. Like it's gotten so bad that basic things have become so hard for teenagers to do and young adults that they literally cannot do them. They're having panic attacks. They're like having ongoing anxiety and depression. They cannot function in normal society. And this is in a society that is easier than it has ever been before in the world. I mean, they've got Door Dash and Uber Eats and it like everything is ease and comfort and yet the suicide rates, the depression rates are off the charts. Well, and they the the the figurative and literal collapsing. Yes. That they're on the floor in a in a heap and we're not making this stuff up. Like we want to emphasize. Well, nor are we throwing people under the bus and like condemning either. We're not condemning. We're just pointing out. We're making observations so that we can all work at being better at it. And this is happening to lots of people. This is not a one-off case. This is happening to lots and lots and lots of people. So if it's happened in your family, which is likely it's happened in your family. You're not the only one. You're not the only one. You're not just like, "Oh great, I failed. I'm such a loser." It's like, "No, this is a generational thing. It's a societal thing. It's a massive problem." And so they're collapsing socially. They're they're just so terrified to have to go out and interact with people. Men, the statistics now about teenage boys and men dating is like non-existent. They're not dating. They're not going out because it's so much easier and more comfortable to stay at home and text or just watch porn. Yeah. Exactly. Like you don't have to go through and that's even a small example of how this is working. You don't have to go through the discomfort of getting out the up the courage to get up, get dressed, present yourself, go out and talk to a real woman and get rejected by her, get rejected cuz that hurts. That's painful and uncomfortable. It's so good for you and so few people it cuz they're terrified, literally terrified of rejection. Men have always been terrified of ree rejection, but beforehand there wasn't another alternative. But they fear fear rejection now. Like earlier generations feared an enemy army. Yeah. It's like, "Oh, there's a whole battalion coming over the hill. We might die." And and now our generation's like, "I have to go talk to people. What if she says and I have to leave the house?" And you're like, "Well, what are you so afraid of?" I have this conversation all the time. Like, "What is it? You're you're just crushed by anxiety and crippling fear and worry. What is it you're so afraid of?" And you know what the answer usually is? The unknown. I I don't know what to expect. I'm like, what what's possibly like what's so terrifying? Like what unknown? Well, I don't know what the food will be like. Are you kidding me? Like what? And so we end up afraid or beat down by simple things, small things, insignificant things because we as as a society, as a generation are so underdeveloped. As I as I love to teach and often say, it's like things seem hard because we are soft. They feel really big, but only because we are really small. it literally truly insignificant things, small things, pathetic things, things that previous generations or or people in other societies would look at like, are you kidding me? That's stuff we do before breakfast in the morning and it takes you months to of therapy to work up to it. Like, what is going on? And so, it's a big big problem that's holding people back. And so while it is part of the tide of the turning and the generation, right, there are things we can do within our families to help our own children develop more resilience and grit and strength. And again, this isn't I I never want to be misunderstood. We're not saying we have to go back to earlier times where people were just hard and hard-hearted and, you know, had no sensitivity for feelings or emotions or what. You know what I'm saying? Like I think there's this idea of the toxicity of that time where you have feelings and you feel bad about something, too bad, just get over it and you know what I'm saying? Like yes, there's this emotional aspect of ourselves we should respect and respond to and and acknowledge and that's okay. That's fine. But at the same time, we have to have resilience. We can't just be these helpless little babies that can't do anything because of our emotions and our fears. So I can experience and my children can experience a full spectrum of emotion and and generally this is applied to men and boys like oh you're not supposed to cry. You're not supposed to have feelings. It's like no a young man or a man can have a full spectrum of of emotions and feelings. It's fantastic but that doesn't mean I have to become hyper sensitive and weak and offended function. Right. Exactly. Especially right. So, there's two books in particular I thought of was we talked about doing this. One of them is The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter. And I've actually only started it. My daughter who's 18 just has recently finished it. She really enjoyed it. And then, of course, The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Hate, which you and I have both read. Fantastic. Both of them. But well, I also think about um the book we're grit by Angela Duckworth. We're actually reading that as a class for the habits for a successful life class. Like we're reading that together because it is so relevant and so and that's that is actually the theme of your I I'm just remembering that the theme of the course this year this semester is character and grit. Y building this resilience, but especially in the the comfort crisis, he really goes through and makes this case that's completely valid. I think we can all acknowledge that, you know, in our modern day life, like we've already talked about, kids don't face discomfort on a daily basis. Like they don't feel cold, they don't feel hungry, they don't have to do anything that's really hard, they don't have to get out of their comfort zone. And that's, if you think about it, that's actually a very strange phenomena for the human condition. Like in all history, the first time in history. Yeah. When has that occurred? Like luxury, fantastic, but if you can't handle hard things, something's off. Well, because it simply does not create the necessary experiences for you to develop grit and resilience, right? Like that's the irony. You have to face difficult circumstances. even something as simple as not having the AC you want or the heat in order to develop grit and resilience. I think even maybe not more importantly but just as importantly when you go out and do difficult things like the extreme things it gives you perspective so that you can do normal everyday things without being annoyed, irritated, anxious or depressed. Yeah. Like if if I go run a marathon, a 5K is a piece of cake, right? That's nothing. Exactly. Like you'd go out and run a 5K every day because you're like, I run a marathon. But if if my life goal is to one day run a 5K, your life's too easy. Walking to the corner is like, man, this is so hard. I had to take the stairs cuz the elevator was busted. Like this is horrible. My life's so terrible. It's like what is going on? So it's not only perspective, but it's also capacity, right? And this is such an important point that I want everyone listening to to really grasp and understand because this is what we want for our families as an ideal that our families are consistently doing challenging things but they don't think it's challenging. It's not that big of a deal. We want to be doing hard things and we want our kids to be like what what's the big deal? This is just normal. It's not that hard. That's what we want. We want to be occasionally doing things that are so insanely difficult that hard things that come along are like me what? No big deal. And and what they'll notice is their peers collapse. Their peers is giving up quitting. They can't do it. They can't handle it. And we want our children and those of you listening, we say that collectively. We want to raise our kids in such a way that they're like, "What? Wait, what's going on? Why why are you guys stopping this? This isn't that bad. This is nothing." And but that only works if we've consistently and deliberately and purposely done really hard things because therein lies I think and from my observation experience the only way to earn that is to do it. The only way to become tough is to do hard things which for us is one of the major reasons that we travel so much with our family. I'm sure a lot of people, you know, they think, "Oh, you've been to 60 plus countries and you've done all this cool stuff. Wow, life of luxury and ease and vacation." Well, no, that's actually not why we do it. And it's easy to think, man, your kids must have it so easy because you guys, you affluent and you have this dream life like, "Hey, kids got it easy. No wonder they're not doing hard things." And we knew that was a risk and so we purposely fit in really hard things. Well, but the other thing that I think many people don't realize because they think vacation all the time is that when you do real travel the way we do it, especially it inevitably involves challenging things like it's just a part of it. So, you know, that's the type of travel we're doing that is challenging. That is not a vacation. That is discomfort, cold, hunger, challenge mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically like all of that is involved in this process. But that is the point. That is why we do it because that is what develops the grit, the resilience, and the strength. But the point is we have to be deliberate about what we're doing as a family day in and day out and and then with the big stuff too. So it's it's what I refer to as the micro dosing and the macro dosing. So the trip to Nepal is a macro yeah dose of of doing hard things. But I mean amazing things, extraordinary things, super cool stuff. Like we're going to enjoy it. It's it's incredible. And we're going to do things that scare us, terrify us. Mhm. And things that push us and challenge us in every way and love it, right? But then you can't just do that once a year. That's that doesn't If we only did that, it would it'd be better than nothing, but it's not enough to develop the kind of resilience we're talking about to be able to function in everyday life. And so that's why the micro do dosing is so important. And that's things as simple as working out. Like that's one of the values I think I've learned for myself and for our children, you've known much longer than me, that just working out regularly is giving you that micro dose of doing something uncomfortable you don't want to do necessarily that pushes you and challenges you and in the process builds grit and resilience. Exactly. daily, five days a week on exercising, but then you know you're taking cold showers and working on projects that you know outside where it's it's hot or cold or raining or whatever it is. Hey there, this is Greg Denny. We want to reach as many people as possible and help as many families as possible with these conversations and we want to keep this podcast adree forever. You can help us do that by subscribing on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen, your favorite platform and on YouTube and leave a quick review and and share your favorite episodes with friends and family. It makes a big difference. Thank you for being a part of this very important movement. Now, some of you listening, I I know you're sitting here thinking, "Oh, my my kids are tough." And some of you are raising your kids out on ranches or farms, and your kids are working. That's amazing. And you got tough kids. Some of them have been doing martial arts since they could crawl and they are tough and and that's fantastic. And and of course our our message here today is is holistic as it always is. We need mental, physical, spiritual, social, financial, all of it. We want grit, character, and toughness in all of those things. Mhm. So, some might be, you know, you can you can go out and put in a 16-hour day working your tail off physically, but you couldn't possibly have an uncomfortable conversation or or something disturbed you mentally, emotionally, or spiritually. You just collapse because you can't handle it. No emotional development, no emotional resilience. Well, or in in the opposite of collapsing sometimes is that you just stuff it down and you go to work and you work hard and you avoid it because that's another pattern that also is like we're talking about it. It's avoiding the development that can occur to de to create that emotional resilience. Exactly. Because that's also just as important. Yeah. Every bit of that is well even the financial. So it's hard to emphasize this enough. We need to be holistically tough so that we can handle whatever life throws at you. I think this this becomes especially important in relationships because yeah, you might have kids that are tough and can work hard and can handle hard things, but if they still are unable to have that difficult conversation, that's going to stranger with their spouse. So now they're married and they're like, "Well, our response to this was always to just go work hard instead of like have the difficult conversation and figure this out and move through it." That also becomes this limiting factor for a fully developed life because now you have this partnership that's underdeveloped because you can't work together to work through these issues. So it's it's socially weak or mentally weak or emotionally weak. And the reason to me that this matters so much is because family life is the backbone of society. And the stronger the families are, the healthier the families are, the healthier society is going to be. So if society is collapsing and and failing in so many ways, well, in many ways that's simply because families are doing that to break down the family and individuals. Exactly. And so we have to recognize all of the different elements that are going into this because yeah, even though you might be great at one area, the finances or the fitness or whatever, if the other areas are struggling, your family is not thriving in the way that it could be to strengthen each other and to strengthen society as a whole. So to me, that's why it's so important that we look at all of these aspects and we're continually working on all of these aspects so we can become that great force for good in the world that makes not only our own lives better, but society better. Yeah. I love that. And so I can picture many of you who are listeners just thinking about yourself and your kids and and you might have a child that is socially super strong, can talk to anyone, anywhere, have great conversations. That's fantastic. But maybe that same child can't handle the mental stress of problems, difficulties, setbacks, mistakes, failures, things not working out, and they just fall apart. Or maybe that child is is really good, has a lot of emotional intelligence. It's wonderful and and maybe a lot of social intelligence and capacity, but couldn't put in, you know, an hour of good hard work. I just can't do it. And obviously the ar some might be arguing, well not everybody has to be able to do all of that. To which I would say wrong. Well, I would say I would say not everyone has to be able to do it at the same levels, but they need to be able to push their own personal boundaries. Well, yes. Yes, you're right. Let's throw out an ideal. An ideal is a well-rounded individual who's developing capabilities, not perfect, but growing, expanding, and developing capabilities holistically in all those areas. Because if we leave one aspect weak, and we just justify it or rationalize it, saying, "Well, I don't have to be strong in every area of life." And that sounds that sounds yes, that sounds that's right. I don't have to be strong in everything. Well, all you're doing is saying, "Well, now I'm vulnerable, weak, and exposed in that area." And so if I don't have somebody there to save me, I'm toast. Well, that's that's not a good thing. That's not a good place to be in. And so if we're if we're talking about ideals and we're trying to be well-rounded people, we're trying to raise well-rounded children, well, we want them to be well-rounded. We want strengths in all those areas. Not not perfection, not superpowers, but strengths so that they're not exposed. You can at least, let's say, carry your own weight in a way. Although I do want to add that I truly believe this is why we're meant to live in communities. I think the most important community is a family community so we can support each other in our different weaknesses. Like I will never have the strength that you have and I would never be able to protect myself the way you could protect me physically. So ultimately, yeah, I want to learn some skills to protect myself, but really I'm going to rely on you to protect me. And that's okay. But I also don't want to be a complete weakling baby, right? Or completely vulnerable because what if I'm not around and you need to defend yourself or defend the kids, right? You have to have some knowledge, some skills about something I could do instead of doing nothing or curling up in a ball of fear, right? Otherwise, cuz then the only time that you're wellrounded is when you're surrounded by people. And that's I mean, and that's when we're at our strongest, I would say. And that's the ideal. Again, if we're talking about ideals, that's the ideal is we surround ourselves with other family members and community members that are also working on strengthening themselves and becoming assets so that we have each other to protect ourselves. And we're not just talking about physical protection from attacks. Like yeah, that can happen of course, but we're talking about the mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, you know, protecting ourselves from stress or overwhelm that occurs naturally from life of death, divorce, you know, unexpected things that occur. Yeah, that's going to happen. And we want to be there to help each other. But it's it's like a chain. The stronger each link is, the stronger the chain is going to be. And so we want each link in the chain to be as strong as possible. Yeah. We're not going to be strong in everything. This skill set is going to be limited to what we really work on. And so I want I want to surround myself with friends and neighbors who have phenomenal skills and tools and capabilities that I don't have. And vice versa. I want to be able to bring things to their lives that they're helpful. And one of the greatest challenges that we see right now is the lack of perspective as as things as they really are, maybe we could say. And so we want, at least in our family, we want for for me and Rachel ourselves to be capable and competent and tough and for our kids to grow up that way so they can handle easily easily handle just the regular chaos and frustrations of life, the problems that happen. But also be ready for incredibly difficult things that will come, that do come, whether it's a natural disaster or a man-made disaster. in a very small way because again I don't feel like it was a huge disruption even though I think it's a significant thing that occurred with the power outage in Portugal and Spain like that's a big deal that entire countries go out of power that's kind of a big deal and then they never told us why they never told us why what happened that's also weird but it was significant to me that we were in Scotland and our children were fine. They had no problem. They literally handled it amazingly. And you know, it was not not even a hiccup. They just like, "Oh, sweet. Let's roll with it." And they they came up with solutions right away. I don't I I don't want to discount this or or downplay it in any way, but I honestly probably think they would have been fine for a week at least. I would have been like, "Oh, we should get back to our kids if we can, but which flights were cancelled, like all that kind of stuff was canceled." Okay. But I also want to bring up some points from the anxious generation because he talks about how in general, you know, yeah, kids are in these bubble wrap. They're overprotected from real life struggles, but then they're also underprotected from virtual harm. And so our kids are living in this little bubble from the real world, but in the meanwhile, they're being exposed to social media, which is extremely damaging for young women, and pornography, which is extremely damaging for men and women, and all of these other things on the internet that are literally just damaging their psyche while they're also not being exposed to difficult things that build resilience. They lack real life experience and they're being poisoned by virtual experience. Yeah. So the social media and the video games and even the porn are replacing real world experiences which often include trial and challenge as a part of the experience with these easy dopamine driven fake experiences. And it's all it's all virtual. This this fake this may sound really sound really weird, but hear me out. I think I'd rather have my son have a sexual experience with a real girl than than with pornography, right? Because it's real. It's I don't think that sounds weird at all. Like Yeah, cuz you're like, "Well, you have people like, okay, he looked at some porn, no big deal, and he masturbated, you know, he didn't go out and have sex." I'm like, but yeah, but one's like completely fake and it screws up dopamine levels. Well, here's why, you guys. And we've been talking about this a lot, but pornography screws up the dopamine levels so badly that real true sexual experiences, which are super important for human beings, they get ruined, right? Because they're too vanilla. They're too It's not even It's not even good, normal, natural, beautiful, enjoyable anymore because the porn has completely distorted it and ruined it. Yeah. And so, you know, if if I had to choose between one of those, I I would rather that my children have actual sexual experiences with a human being that they they have feelings for than looking at a a piece of glass on a phone or a computer, an iPad, and then masturbating. It's like that's not even real. Yeah. It's weird. The social media is not real. Video games aren't real. I was like, "This is bizarre, really truly bizarre time we live in where they're having these virtual experiences that are quite literally rewiring their brains in strange ways and then they're incapable in real life experiences, but like have all these virtual experiences that don't amount to hardly anything in the real life." Yeah. So, they're experiencing life through the screen, but it doesn't include the real life aspect of the challenge, the trials, the sweat, the risk. It's like removing all of the things that actually develop you as a human being, and all you get left is the dopamine hit. Maybe the perfect comparison is like something like Minecraft where they can get in there and build entire empires. Yeah. Without with pushing buttons, but they they can't go outside and and build a fort. A fort. Yeah. Right. And so then of course it's creating you know they're they're comparing themselves with others. They're they're they have increased anxiety, depression, suicide. All of this and in fact Jonathan hate points it out in his book is directly connected and caused by these things. It's not contributing. It's not correlated. It is causing anxiety, depression, and suicide. Yeah, it's so sad. It's a real problem. So it leads to of course emotional immaturity. They can't handle criticism. They can't handle stress. They have no tolerance for discomfort for work or real life relationships having to go out and be rejected or any physical effort. And they're so entitled they think their life should never be that hard, right? Like the the littlest disappointment and they're just like so put out like I was never supposed to experience this level of difficulty in my life. What are you talking about? This is life. And then of course because of that they're terrified to fail because they've never actually failed at everything anything because they've never actually done anything or tried anything. So they're terrified to attempt. Exactly. Terrified attempting. And what do you have? It's a it's a mentally, emotionally, socially crippled person. And so they're squishy because they've never been forged by difficulty. Exactly. There's no strength there. Start Start right now and maybe maybe do a little sleep out in your backyard. But all you do is okay everybody as you are what you have on just go lay in the grass we're spending the night. That's tough. Yes. Even if you took the sleeping bags out it would still be challenging. You know I'm like cuz here's something else I need to bring up. I need to mention this. And in fact we did an entire podcast episode on this. The other key element to it that we haven't touched on yet is we cannot force our children to do these things. You have to invite them in a time. You have to invite them and you have to make it look attractive and like something they want to do because of the benefits, not necessarily because of the pain. They have to be invited because if they are forced, they will literally do the opposite. They will resent it. They will hate you and they will end up being weak and squishy just to spite you. Yep. Right. they'll pursue even more luxury because they didn't I'll try to link to the other episode in the show notes because we did a whole episode about how to invite your children to do difficult things cuz that's a key part of this 100 in fact that's the only way it really works definitely you have to get the kids the buy in where they want to live like this right and our kids do and and we've taken our we've taken our older ones especially and they've gone out and done such difficult grueling things and they do it with a smile and and we have fun we actually fun doing it. Like that's for me that's that's kind of my personal one of the aspects of my personal mission is to be able to do really really hard things and have fun doing it. Can can I be suffering physically and mentally and emotionally and spiritually and socially still be like this is great. Let's let's crack some jokes. Let's tell some stories. Let's have a great time even though my body is just dying is hurting so bad. And yes, of course we can. And in fact, you're really good at doing that. And so are the kids now. Like they're in like they're having a blast and like there's there's real true suffering going on when we're pushing limits so far and they're smiling and laughing and having a good time and and the other people around him was like, "What? What are you guys on? Like how you do this?" And and you realize no, the the body can be in pain and the mind and spirit can be in joy and bliss. And so it's possible. So we we lead the way, set the example, and realize, man, we can have a ton of fun while becoming really tough. That's that's the golden ticket to making sure our families are super capable. Okay, love you guys. Have an absolutely fantastic week. Start planning and strategizing and implementing both micro doses and macro doses. Get some big big challenging trips or events or races or competitions on your calendar in the next 12 months. and start today. Just start doing uh smaller things with the kids and get them involved. I I always invite my I did this and we did this with our family. Like when the kids were little little, I was doing workouts and stuff and they would come out and do their little push-ups or little sit-ups and they would climb on me and I would do more push-ups with them on my back or whatever and they started doing their little squats and wall sits with me. And so even when they were small, they started doing it and they that's been happening now for 24 years. And even our little 8-year-old, she goes out in the gym with us and she's cranking out push-ups, excellent form, and chin-ups. Like, she's full-on knocking out chin-ups. Like, she's eight. This is amazing. But it starts, it starts with little things like that. And they follow suit. And I've had my clients do it. And, you know, then pretty soon the whole family's in there doing their little workouts. It's amazing. It's beautiful. And it starts building the culture, the the dynamics, the family legacy. that we want to create and and live by. So, love you guys. Reach out for