How To Talk To Kids About Anything

Special guest: Dr. William Stixrud. Are we raising an anxious generation? Many would agree that we are. The causes of the uptick in anxiety among children has started to be discussed—even within our podcast- we have talked with Jessica Lahey and our obsession with grades and our focus on avoiding failure at all costs. We have talked with Julie Lythcott Haims about the bubble-wrapping of our children that leaves them unprepared for a life that we deliver them to at the age of 18—a life in which they don’t have the skills, yes, but also where they don’t have the resilience or the confidence to take it on. In The Self-Driven Child, authors William Stixrud and Ned Johnson continue this conversation—focusing specifically on the ways that children today are being denied a sense of controlling their own lives—doing what they find meaningful, and succeeding or failing on their own, and on their own terms. While screen time and technology certainly are part of the problem, the real issues lie with us—the parents and t