The Thing MORE important than Emotional Regulation with Dr Ross Greene #92

In this conversation with Dr. Ross Greene, we unpack why so many kids struggle with frustration, big emotions, and power struggles… and why the usual parenting advice often makes things worse.

If you’ve ever wondered why your child explodes over small things, refuses to cooperate, or seems overwhelmed by everyday expectations, this episode will completely shift how you see challenging behavior. We talk about toddler tantrums, emotional regulation, frustration tolerance, ADHD, anxiety, school stress, collaborative problem solving, and why kids do well if they can—not when we punish them hard enough. This is a practical, research-backed conversation for exhausted parents who want fewer meltdowns, less yelling, and a calmer way to parent through hard moments.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why emotional regulation is not the first skill kids need
• What toddler meltdowns and explosive behavior are actually communicating
• How to reduce power struggles without becoming permissive
• Why punishment and consequences often fail with “challenging” kids
• A simple mindset shift that helps parents stay calmer during difficult behavior

This conversation is grounded in developmental psychology, neuroscience, and decades of real clinical experience working with kids who struggle with frustration, flexibility, and emotional overwhelm. The goal isn’t to control behavior—it’s to understand what’s beneath it so parents can respond more effectively and raise emotionally healthy, resilient kids.

If you’re tired of second-guessing yourself every time your child melts down, refuses to listen, or spirals emotionally, this channel is here to help parenting feel clearer, calmer, and more doable in real life.

Check out Dr. Ross Greene's Book: The Kids Who Aren't OK

Transcript

Why More Kids Are Struggling

Jon @WholeParent 0:00

Today on the Whole Parent Podcast, we are joined by Dr. Ramos Green, a clinical researcher, psychologist, and author of The Explosive Child, a book that is on my top five all-time parenting books, and it has fundamentally changed the way that parents and educators understand challenging behaviors in kids. His work brings together psychology and neuroscience, as well as decades of clinical experience in ways that really challenge traditional ideas around why kids struggle. Things like they're lazy or they're oppositional or they simply need more consequences. You might know him from his collaborative and proactive solutions model, which has influenced schools and therapists and families around the world. But this conversation is also about his later book, latest book, I should say, The Kids Who Aren't Okay, and what it reveals about the growing number of kids in schools who are, exactly as I just said, not okay. And I think this conversation is especially important right now because it fits in with our last episode where we explored with Peter Gray how modern schooling may actually be contributing to the rise in anxiety and depression and disconnection and all of those things in our youth. So today we're taking that step, that conversation one step further. We're not just asking what true school is doing to children, but how we can actually work with schools to help the very kids that are right now not okay. I'm really excited about the conversation. Let's get into it. Thanks for inviting me to be on. It's frequently been in my top two or three books about parenting, and it really centers around this concept that I think really is a mindset shift. And usually I'm talking about practical advice and I'm talking about, okay, what are the actual skills that we can use and what are the techniques that we can use with kids? And I think all of that's good, but we have to begin from this different mindset, which is something that I got from you. You say that kids do well if they can. So what happens when we build a world where fewer and fewer people can do well? Like we're designing environments, and a lot of this goes with your new book, uh, The Kids Who Aren't Okay. We're designing environments that make it harder for any human to function well. Would you say that like the world that we live in today is a place where kids can do well? Or do you feel like we need to make some changes?

SPEAKER_01 2:59

I think we need to make some changes, but I think most kids, still the majority, are doing okay. Um, I think more than ever are not, which is why I wrote The Kids Who Aren't Okay. I don't write new books unless I feel like I have something new to say. And the new book, at least, was written because increasingly kids are depressed and anxious and exhibiting concerning behavior and suicidal and skipping school. And I wanted to talk about how the world is a tougher place for kids these days than it was 20 or 30 years ago, and all the societal changes that have made it harder to be a kid than it was when I was growing up. Um, kids can still do well, but we've made it harder, and we need to take a look at that. Um, schools in particular may not be able to do anything about these societal changes that have made it harder to be a kid, but there are things they can do to be responsive to what's walking in the door. Um, knowing all of what we're putting on kids these days to make it harder to be a kid.

Jon @WholeParent 4:10

Yeah, I I feel like we've never had more tools for parents and more like information about parenting. I think about social media, which we can talk about that is the the negative side of that and how it's impacting kids and and how it's uh struggle for kids. But what it has meant is that so many more people are reading your work, so many more people are learning these things, so many more people are reading books like The Whole Brain Child by Tina Payne Bryson and Dan Siegel. They're reading uh books by smaller niche authors like me, Punishment Free Parenting. Uh and so there's so much information out there and there's so much convenience around like, you know, just the modern world and how things are there. Why does it feel like people are less able to cope than they were 20 years ago? Why is it harder for kids now?

High Stakes Testing And Zero Tolerance

SPEAKER_01 5:08

Um, tops on my list in schools, high-stakes testing, um, where we're saying that every kid needs to get over the same line by the end of the school year. It would be a whole lot better if we were using every kid as their own reference point for progress, meeting every kid where they're at, giving teachers permission to be attuned and responsive to the developmental variability that's walking in the door, that would be better. Teachers told us a long time ago that high-stakes testing was a bad idea. They're still telling us that, and they have been right all along. Um zero tolerance policies in schools, which is where we ramped up the punishments and tightened the vice grip. And uh, in response to kids' concerning behavior, without realizing, and this is what my work has been about for 30 years, that what precedes a concerning behavior is an expectation that a kid is having difficulty meeting, or what I call an unsolved problem. And there is the fork in the road. For a long time, we've been just trying to modify concerning behavior. Concerning behavior is just a kid's frustration response. I wish everybody knew that. Um we've all heard the cliche all behavior is communication. What's concerning behavior telling us? That there's an expectation a kid is having difficulty meeting. Modifying behavior. Consequences are not problem-solving strategies. Um, there's the rub, which is why we've been losing a lot of kids for a very long time. We've been busy modifying their frustration responses instead of solving the problems that are causing those frustration responses. The good news about those unsolved problems is that they're predictable, because most of them are old. This is not the first time Tommy has had difficulty completing the double digit division problems on the worksheet in math. It's the 197th time Tommy has had difficulty completing the double-digit division problems on the worksheet in math. Why are we stuck in the heat of the moment? Dealing with Tommy's concerning behavior when he's frustrated about that yet again. That problem can be identified proactively, that problem can be solved proactively, and now here's the last little bit. What's the downside in involving Tommy in solving that problem? None. There's only upside. So the problem solving is not only proactive, it's collaborative. There are so many things that go on in schools, and this is not me being critical of schools. Schools are set up this way. In fact, three in the kids who aren't okay is called set up to be late. Schools are set up to be late, which means we're late to the show a lot. We even have staff in the schools whose primary job responsibility is to show up when it's already late. Ugh, we don't have to be late. We could be early with just a little bit of intentionality and a little commitment. Um, we don't have to be late, and we don't have to be focused on behavior. We could be focused on proactively and collaboratively solving the problems that are causing those behaviors.

Jon @WholeParent 8:32

You know, a lot of your work, especially, I didn't before even this conversation, I wasn't aware of how much of what you're saying is applied to school. We've been talking a lot about school on the podcast recently, but another person who I'm just realizing in this very moment is so similar to you in sort of like a philosophical way, probably not a methodological way all the time, is Alfie Cohn, who we had on the podcast not long ago. And he talks about shifting our ideas about discipline from doing to to working with. And I feel like that's kind of what you're saying here is that it not number one, that these things are predictable. This is chapter two in my book. Curiosity is the is the basis, right? You have to be like uh Dr. House who's who's a problematic medical doctor, but a great metaphor of seeking for the uh underlying problem rather than constantly playing whack-a-mole with the symptom management, which is all of these behaviors. But when we seek for those problems, when we seek for those uh that expectation gap that you talk about, what is the benefit to bringing in a child into that process problem solving capacity and doing some sort of collaborative problem solving solving with them?

SPEAKER_01 9:57

Well, first of all, Alfie and I are old friends. Uh, little known fact, Alfie and I went to summer camp together a very long time ago. So Alfie and I go way back. We had Alfie as a speaker at our annual summit at the nonprofit I founded, Lives in the Balance, uh, a few years back. Um if people are interested, that summit is coming up in about a month. They can learn about it on the Lives in the Balance website. Um, the advantage to involving kids and solving the problems that are affecting their lives is that they're gonna have to solve problems for the rest of their life, and we might as well help them learn how to do it. But also, I don't think problems that are solved without involving kids work very well because that means that we adults are divining what's getting in the kids' way. We are divining what the solution should be. I find that we're wrong a lot, and there is only upside to asking kids what's making it hard for them to meet a particular expectation. People always say to me, Ross, what makes you think the kid knows? And my answer is 35 years of asking. Kids know what's making the kid is your number one source of information on what's making it hard for them to meet a particular expectation if we ask. And kids have amazing solutions. Um, what is the upside to leaving a kid out of the loop on the problems that are affecting their lives? I can't think of any.

Jon @WholeParent 11:35

When I was in the early draft of Punishment Free Parenting, I was I was writing to someone who didn't always agree with the way in which you and I think about parenting. And I talked about I I wrote the sentence kids after the age of about six probably have a clearer understanding of of what's going on in their inner world and why they're making the mistakes that they're making than we do. And the person who was reading that early draft circled that sentence or underlined it or it was something digital, you know, highlighted it digitally and said, I don't think that this is true. And I thought that that was such an exposing moment for me where it was so new, it was such a novel idea to me that kids weren't aware of their inner world.

Unsolved Problems Behind Big Behavior

Jon @WholeParent 12:32

But I think that so many people that is exactly what I mean that that was exposing to the worldview that I think we come in contact with so frequently, which is no kids can't be involved in the solution because they they're not smart enough, or they don't understand enough, or they're not conscious enough, or they're not developed enough, when in reality, actually you know, and and what I said, what I replied to that with in the document probably was some some to some effect of it's just baffling to me that you would think that you know more than what's happening in somebody's mind. That that we would know more. And I think that that's such that's such an important piece that I think we we often just miss. So I want to talk a little bit about frustration tolerance because you talk about before we go on.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

That what you're saying is that we've been selling kids short for a very long time. Um, I think that six is too old. Uh, we've been engaging three-year-olds in solving the problems that are affecting their lives forever. And by the way, infants know when something's the matter. And infants know when we've done something to address what's the matter. So now we're going all the way to the minute the kid pops out. All right, sorry to interrupt.

Jon @WholeParent 13:58

No, no, no, not at all. Well, and and the funny thing about punishment free, I'm I'm now getting my PhD in developmental psychology. But at the time, I I did not have a formal education. I had a I would say that it was a self-directed education in child and developmental psych and things like that, but it really it was just an informal in more than self-directed, in that I had gone to people like Tina Payne Bryson. I had gone to people like Aliza Pressman, and um I specifically had some people who maybe don't have as big of names, but they were the dean of the Chicago School for D for uh psychology and things like that. And they had given me here here's the reading list, John. So when I wrote Punishment Free Parenting, I very much so had kind of a master's degree level of understanding because I had done all the master's degree level thinking and reading and I'd gone back and forth, but I was very conscious that I didn't have the credentials. So when I wrote things like by age six, this was not me saying, you know, oh, well, you know, kid infants have this knowledge. I was I was trying to make the most unimpeachable claims that I could because I didn't want to be on the cutting edge. I just wanted to be presenting information to parents. And so I love what you said. I think it's I think you're right. And in my own personal anecdotal experience, I've totally had that experience of with my 18-month-old, even, right? She knows what's going on, and I can, and she can't communicate it in the same way. But if I can be a good detective, I can oftentimes use her as the as the litmus. So I love what you're saying. I don't disagree at all. I the reason I said six was because I was trying to make a claim that nobody would disagree with.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

I wasn't criticizing the six. There's people who would say that six is too high or too low. Well, that's what I was saying. Yeah, that's exactly what this person thought. Right. Pia people often point to Piaget as you can't solve problems together with a kid until they're like 11. Um, really, we do solve problems with infants. They they can't talk to us, but they can let us know that they're in distress. They can let us know if we got it right with what's the matter. Um, that's infants. And I wouldn't sell myself short on the degree. I think degrees give people credibility, but experience and keeping their eyes wide open are the real credibility.

Jon @WholeParent 16:26

Well, and I think that that's helpful too, because the parents who listen to this podcast are obviously they're doing they're doing research. Like that part of this podcast is is finding alternative ways to raise your kids. And I I think that you are the expert in your kid. And, you know, something that Bruce Perry often says is that the most healthy, the, the, the person who's going to have the greatest impact is the person with the greatest attachment. And so learning this stuff, you don't have to have a PhD or be a you know affective neuroscientist or you know, have taken neuroanatomy to, you know, developmental neuroanatomy to to understand what is going on in the mind of your child. You just have to, you just have to ask. And you have to be, you have to, you have to the thing that having four kids has given me that that nothing else could have given me is the humility to say, you know, I don't really know. I know what I know, but also I'm just I'm I'm investigating every problem.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

You need curiosity and you need a definition of being an authority figure that isn't, I know everything and I have all the answers. I can partner with my kid. Um partnering your with your kid is about as fun as it gets. It is. If you got four, you better be partnering with them.

Jon @WholeParent 17:44

Oh, there's no other way. So I one of the things that you talk about, you you mentioned this frustration gap. And I and you talk about frustration a lot, probably more than almost anyone else, because you identify frustration tolerance as a skill to be built rather than just like an in an innate trait or something like that. Do you think that there is a piece to this where like modern technology is lowering our ability to tolerate frustration? Or is this just always been a thing for kids?

SPEAKER_01 18:21

Uh people who influence my thinking, like Walter Michelle, who's a very renowned social learning theorist, were talking about frustration tolerance 60 years ago. Um, so I don't think it's new. I haven't given a great deal of thought to the degree to which social media is lowering frustration tolerance. Um there might be a case to be built for addictive video games playing a role. But I think that given developmental variability, there have always been human beings, kids included, who tolerate frustration well, and human beings, kids included who don't tolerate frustration very well at all. It's the human beings, kids included, who don't tolerate frustration very well at all, who end up paying a big price for the fact that they don't tolerate frustration well at all, which means people are being punitive with them, which only makes them more frustrated, because punitive punishment doesn't solve any of the problems that are causing the kid to be frustrated in the first place. And that's the most important message is that uh punishment and even rewards, which are cut from the exact same bolt of cloth. I think I'm gonna sound like Alfie again here. Um those aren't problem-solving strategies. So look what we've been missing that's been right in front of our noses for all this time. B.F. Skinner told us that behavior is the only thing that's observable. So we've been paying attention to behavior forever and trying to modify it forever. Expectations kids are having difficulty meeting that are causing their behaviors, just as observable, just as quantifiable. We got to start focusing on that.

Why Kids Must Help Solve It

Jon @WholeParent 20:13

And it's a much more parent-centric model. It's actually controlling, you know, I think about this kind of in a broad way. This is controlling something that we can control. Like we can't control the child that we have, and we can't control their unique. I I think about Russell Barclay when he talks about, you know, your your kid's not somebody who you're going to be specifically able to, you know, it's not a designer kid. Well, if you do X, Y, and Z. And this is kind of against the the behaviorism, John Walton, hey, if you give me a kid and and I'm allowed total and complete control over their behavior, I can turn them into anything that I want. You know, their kids are just clay to be molded in your in our hands. We when we take seriously that we don't have control over that, what we have control over is our responses to our kids. What we have control over is how we choose to work with instead of do to. What we have control over is, you know, how we respond. But I think also, or maybe I should ask you, do you feel like we've built a world that rewards the sort of reactivity rather than kind of reflective, responsive, thoughtful, you know, reactions to kids? I I feel like so much of our world just rewards the parents, socially at least, who are reactive. And and even the adults. When I look at our political landscape, we re we reward people who are reactive rather than reflective.

SPEAKER_01 21:54

Certainly in politics, being more muscular. Is um sometimes politically expedient. Um it's a lot easier to drop a bomb than it is to explain why you're not dropping a bomb and what you're trying to accomplish by not dropping a bomb or invading a country or kidnapping the leader of a country. Um so I think that um what I mostly think is that the world these days is faster and um more oriented toward quick fix solutions. Uh I cringe when I hear people saying, here's some tips for how to handle a kid who is struggling. I don't know if there's any tips. It's a little more complicated than that. It's not that complicated. Um, it doesn't take that long, but it does take some explaining. And as we were talking earlier, I was thinking that probably my greatest disadvantage as a person who is trying to help adults treat kids in a certain way is that it takes longer than a nanosecond for me to explain the work that we need to be doing with kids, right? It's not a tip, it's not a trick. Um, so if anything, I think that's the part we're looking for fast quick fixes these days. And um, boy, these kids who I've been working with for 40 years, quick fixes, they've had more than most of us will experience in this lifetime. Quick fixes slow things down.

Jon @WholeParent 23:41

Quick fixes slow things down. Yeah, I mean, I'm I'm as much the problem as the solution here, Dr. Green. Uh, you know, I have built a a platform on social media of many followers, whatever that means. Um, and I can tell you without a doubt that when I tell people how to respond in the moment to a tantrum, to their kid hitting, to their kid biting, this is what you do, X, Y, Z in 90 seconds or less, that video is going to get far more views and far more reaction and far more followers than a conversation with you or in in my book where uh I do have a five-step method at the back where it just I mean it's it's really just how do you how do you walk through investigating a problematic behavior rather than responding and reacting to it. Um so I stand by what I said in the book, but I spend eight chapters laying out this is how we diagnose before I get to, and here's why the punitive approaches don't work. Before I get to now what do you do instead? Um most people probably don't make it through your book. Most people don't make it through my book, most people don't make it through they but they make it through a 60 second or a 90-second video. And I guess that maybe that's really what I was talking about when I said with modern technology lowering our ability to manage frustration. I think it's beyond video games. Actually, I'm I've become less and less critical of video games as I the more I've studied dopamine, I'm more critical of these quick fix systems like social media than I am of you know, Nintendo back in the 90s and early 2000s, that was actually a frustration tolerance building, right? They they wanted you to get frustrated. Actually, I just had um Michaeline Dukloff on the podcast, and she said, you know, hey, Nintendo wanted you to get frustrated so that you gave up on the game and bought a new game instead of you know the slot machine that is modern. But let's let I want to talk about uh I want to talk about your your new book. I also want to talk a little bit about the world that we live in, more about that, but we gotta take a break before we do that.

SPEAKER_02 26:12

I am back with Dr.

Jon @WholeParent 26:13

Ross Green talking about his work for the past, oh, I don't know, 35 years in child development and parenting and education. His book, uh The Explosive Child, is one of my all-time favorites, but he has a new book coming out. And I think that you're gonna be able to answer this next question pretty pretty succinctly based on that. I I wrote it before I realized what your new book is about. If you could redesign Dr. Green, one system that we in the world that we live in, whether that's schools or parenting, or maybe it's tech, as we've just been talking about, what do you think the one system is that's doing the most damage or that has the possibility of doing the most good that we have right now?

SPEAKER_01 26:57

Schools have the possibility of doing the most good. Um, we've got to give teachers permission to be, as I said earlier, responsive to the developmental variability that's walking in the door. Gotta give educators permission to meet every kid where they're at. High-stakes testing has been an abomination in those realms. Had a lot of educators say to me, they've taken all the humanity out of my job because they've forced me to be a test prep robot. That's not how you um teach kids well. It's not how you help kids be more humane and compassionate. And when people sort of scoff at that, I tell them that educators have always been among the most important socialization agents in our society. We um should be helping teachers be those socialization agents,

Frustration Tolerance And Quick Fix Culture

SPEAKER_01 27:55

not making it harder. I would transform school discipline so that it is not about punishment, but so that it is instead about solving problems with kids so they don't exhibit concerning behavior in the first place. I would make school discipline not reactive, I would make it proactive. Most of those 35 years I've spent have been spent trying to get people out of the heat of the moment into the proactive territories instead of the reactive. Um schools have such incredible potential for helping kids. Here's what's interesting: every kid goes to school. Not every kid is going to have the luxury of going home to the absolutely most ideal situation at home. And yet, they all go to school. Um, even if a kid is going home to something that isn't exactly ideal, their educators have six hours a day, five days a week, nine months a year, uh, to make things good. And I'm not saying compensate for what's going on at home. I'm saying just do right by the kid in those six hours a day, five days a week, nine months a year, and you can have just mammoth impact on the life of this kid, even though you may not have any impact at all on what's going on after they go home at the end of the school day. Schools is number one on my list. Let's let's make it good.

Jon @WholeParent 29:23

Yeah, you know, I tend to approach this from the opposite side, and uh I think that that's okay. I I uh I actually agree with everything you just said though. My struggle is I can't fix the school system, but I can positive like if if if I have to send my kid for six to eight hours a day to a school and I have no ability to influence because of the red tape, because of the and and I'm hearing from teachers exactly what you're hearing. The humanity's been taken out of my job. I don't have an ability. Teachers are quitting in math, and we used to say, oh, teachers quit because they're not being compensated. Um I work in I I used to work in HR. That was my first job. People almost never quit because of the compensation. People quit because they feel powerless. That is why people leave their job. P teach I'm not saying that we shouldn't comp I I think we should be like Finland, teachers should be the highest paid people in in society. Don't don't hear me saying that teachers shouldn't get paid more. But I don't think that just paying people more solves the problem here. I think if you pay people, if you paid somebody $200,000 a year to stare at a white wall, they would probably quit. You know what I mean? Like there there is an aspect to this where you teachers as much as they uh can do, all in in my experience, feel powerless to some degree. And that those teachers and and I just had on the podcast a school principal who quit her job and homeschooled her kids, pulled them out of the school where she was the school principal. And the reason that she did that is because she felt, in her words, powerless as the principal. So I agree with you on everything you just said on school. I hope that we can get there.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

I don't I don't know if we can, but there's a lot of schools that have implemented my work that are there. A lot of principals who um took a stand and didn't get fired and changed things for the better in their buildings, and a lot of parents who have instigated a lot of those changes. So there's no question it is a system that is filled with inertia and bureaucracy. Um but I like a challenge.

Jon @WholeParent 31:42

I love that. Well, I got Peter Gray on the podcast coming up soon, so I'm gonna have to ask his thoughts on that too, because he's he he he he and you probably agree on most things, but maybe but maybe not on maybe not on this one. Uh so I want to move it a little bit outside of school and talk about what parents can do at home. Because so many uh parents that I know, just kind of with our last couple minutes here, so many parents that I know have kids who have had the DSM 5 textbook thrown or the DSM 5 manual thrown in their face. Their kid has a diagnosis, ADHD, ODD, PDA, ASD, Tourette's, etc. What is the number one change that those parents can make? I'm not asking for a quick tip, but what is what is the big shift for those parents where they can start doing, implementing some of this stuff that you talk about? Where would you tell them to start?

SPEAKER_01 32:44

I would tell them to start at the Lives in the Balance website where they can download an instrument called the assessment of skills and unsolved problems. It's free. So they can identify their kids' skills and unsolved problems. The skills help them understand why their kid is struggling so much to deal with frustration, and the unsolved problems are the expectations their kid is having difficulty meeting. Those are the problems they could be busy solving. I would tell them to have less faith in the diagnosis. A diagnosis doesn't tell them what their kid's skills and unsolved problems are. So even though their kid has a diagnosis, or eight, they may still be describing their kid as a mystery or as a puzzle. That's because diagnoses don't help us understand kids or help make them predictable, as well as skills and unsolved problems do. So first, let's stop having so much faith in the diagnosis telling us about our kid. Diagnoses are actually fairly limited in telling us about our kid. Then let's learn about our kid through the prism of skills and unsolved problems. Can learn all about how to do that on the Lives in the Balance website, and then start solving problems with your kid collaboratively and proactively. But lenses are the first place to start. And I don't view kids through diagnostic lenses. I view kids through the prism of skills and unsolved problems. That's the place to start.

Jon @WholeParent 34:13

If you had to say one typical, and I know this is probably the opposite question that you want to hear, but if you had to say one, like this is the skill that I see most lacking in kids today, or maybe it's the same as it's been for 35 years for you, what is that skill? Where where can parents start by looking around and going, okay, I don't what's that one skill that that tends to manifest as behavior or problematic behavior that that parents are missing?

SPEAKER_01 34:47

First I'm going to tell you the one that everybody's focused on these days, then I'm going to tell you the one that I would say. The one everybody's focused on these days is emotion regulation, and that's big. But generally speaking, human beings don't become dysregulated until after there's a problem that's standing in their way and that they're having trouble solving. So we've been spending a lot of time teaching kids how to regulate their emotions, but that's late, that's reactive. By the time they're having difficulty regulating their emotions, there's already been an unsolved problem to set that in motion. The skill I would say is problem solving. Um, if you ask me what's the most critical skill for life, problem solving. Because if you know how to solve the problems that are affecting your life, you won't become emotionally dysregulated very often. Uh, you will have a feeling of mastery, self-efficacy that you can solve pretty much no matter what comes your way.

Jon @WholeParent 35:47

Dr. Ross Creen, thank you so much for being on the Whole Parent podcast. Where else can we find you? I know that you have a new book. It's called The Kids Who Aren't Okay. It's about the education system. It's written for teachers, but also lots of parents read it. They can find The Explosive Child, which is uh one of the all-time great best-selling parenting books. It should sell more copies than it does, in my opinion. Uh, but other than Life

Schools As The Biggest Leverage Point

Jon @WholeParent 36:12

in the Balance, anywhere else that you can, and all those links will be below in the show notes. Uh LivesintheBalance.com, anything else.org. I'm sorry, dot org, livesinthebalance.org, anything else, anywhere else that you parents can find you.

SPEAKER_01 36:27

One more thing on the Lives in the Balance website, they can, as of May 22nd, find our parenting platform. Um, we have been busy at work filling that with resources galore for parents. The new book is for educators, the parenting platform is for parents, and May 22nd is the launch date, and people can access it straight from the Lives in the Balance website.

unknown 36:58

Dr.

Jon @WholeParent 36:58

Ross Green, thank you so much for being on the Whole Parent Podcast. Thanks for inviting me to do this. Thanks again for listening to this episode of the Whole Parent Podcast. I hope it was worth the time that you gave it today. I hope you learned something or were challenged, or maybe it just made you smile. If it did, there's a couple of things that you can do that would really, really help me out. The first one is to go right now and subscribe to my channel at Whole Parent on YouTube. YouTube is getting full, unabridged versions of every podcast episode ad-free right now. I am really trying to get people over there because I have so much awesome YouTube content planned and I have such a small following over there. So if you want to get the best of Whole Parent, hop over to YouTube. There's awesome stuff there. It's going to absolutely change your life. The second thing that you can do is actually go to the link in the description. You can find YouTube there as well, but find the link for the Parent Lab. It's my exclusive community where I do group coaching. I have a whole course library there full of amazing educational resources for parents. It is a subscription model where you gain access for a low monthly fee. Go ahead, check out the Parent Lab. There's so many amazing things in the Parent Lab. And if you want to grow in your parenting, it's the best way to do that. The third thing that you can do, and it probably costs you the most because it costs you vulnerability, is to share this episode or this podcast in general with people in your life. There are parents in your life who are struggling. There are parents in your life who could use this in their life. And we know that the number one way that we can get more people to listen and watch and follow along with the podcast is by personal referral. People want to know what you're listening to. They want to know what's helping you to parent more effectively. And so if you can do that, find somebody in your life who needs this podcast and send it to them. I would be so, so, so appreciative. Thank you again so much for your time. You can find links to everything that we talked about in the episode, including my books, Punishment Free Parenting, and Set My Feelings Free down below. And I'll see you next time.