What If Your Child’s Behavior Isn’t the Problem? with Geoff Owen

Rod Richard: Most fathers want to raise respectful, responsible, and capable children, but when behavior starts going sideways, our instinct is usually to correct it. We set a boundary, give a consequence, repeat ourselves, and sometimes raise the pressure. but what if that pressure is feeding the behavior we're trying to stop? Today, Jeff Owen is asking us to reconsider one of our most basic parenting assumptions that children's behavior needs to be controlled. Jeff Owen is the founder of Biologically Aligned Parenting and the author of Parenting Assumption. His work challenges the belief that children's behavior needs to be managed, corrected, or controlled. Jeff began exploring child development long before becoming a father after training at the Old Vic Theater School and working in theater. He encountered Gene Leeloft's The Continuum concept. That experience changed how we understood children, maturity, and the environment children need. Jeff later applied those ideas while raising his two daughters. Today he helps parents look beneath conflict, resistance, withdrawal, aggression, and over compliance to understand what a child might be communicating through their behavior. All right, welcome back to the Forfeit Fatherhood Podcast, a podcast for fathers by fathers, where we talk about the four pillars of fatherhood, which are faith, family, finance, and fitness. And I'm excited to have a guest with me today who is also a girl dad. we both have daughters, he has two and I have two. and I'm excited to kind of hear I always like talking to other girl dads, especially because I feel like the the fathering of daughters is different. I think you have to become a different version of yourself that maybe you you wouldn't have to be if you have sons. And I'm always interested to hearing the the journey of someone a little bit further ahead of me in their in their fatherhood and their parenting because it gives me an opportunity to either reaffirm the direction I'm going or completely course correct if I need to. So my guest today is Jeff. Jeff how you doing today, brother?

Geoff: I'm doing very well, glad to be here and I've never heard girl dad before. No, I like that, I like that. Is it a big thing over there? Yeah? Okay.

Rod Richard: really? That's a it's a it's a big it's a big thing here. It's a big yeah, yeah. It's like like a it's a whole hashtag and social media thing and I think it got really po I mean obviously guys have been fathers to daughters forever, but there was a big thing around Kobe Bryant right around the time of his passing and him and his daughter both passed away and there was this whole kind of girl dad movement that went along with that. you know, for him being as as big of a star as he was here, kind of carried on. And so there's you know, there's clothing brands, there's a there's like a whole thing around it here in the US. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm gonna

Geoff: Wow, okay. I'm a girl dad, I'm a girl dad. That's good, I like that.

Rod Richard: there you go. All right. So so Yeah. How how old are your daughters?

Geoff: Or I'm a woman dad now. you God. They're 33 and 31.

Rod Richard: Okay, okay. So two years but my my girls are two years apart as well.

Geoff: Yeah.

Rod Richard: So

Geoff: How are the old girls now?

Rod Richard: They're they're young. So my my oldest will be fourteen on Saturday. and my youngest is eleven. She'll be thirteen in October. So sorry, sorry, she'll be twelve in October. That math doesn't make sense. She's eleven, she's gonna be twelve in October.

Geoff: Okay, I think we've got 18 months between our two, so yeah.

Rod Richard: Okay, okay, yeah. Cool, cool, cool. So so for the guys who have not heard of you yet, will you tell us a little or no, we we know you have girls and you now know that you're a girl dad, but but what else what else should the fellas should the fellas know about you before we get in their conversation?

Geoff: What should the fellas know? Well, I'm the founder of Biologically Aligned Parenting. I've written a couple of books about it. I've spent my life, well, the last 40 years, actually, researching and exploring the whole thing of how we bring our children up in the world. And that started about six years before I became a father myself, and not knowing I was going to become a And that was because I was very intrigued by my own childhood in my mid-twenties. And it led me to where I am now, to how we raised, or shall I say, reared our children. Because raise and rear are two different things in my book. And maybe we can talk about that at some point.

Rod Richard: Okay. Yeah, yeah, I definitely I definitely want to get into the

Geoff: Yeah, I've done different things, you know, in my life. I've had a property business. I'm a train joiner. So I had a 10-year business making windows, doors, stuff like that. I was a trained actor. I've been on the stage for about 10 years. I trained at the Old Vic Theatre School. My very first apprenticeship was with Vidal Sassoon, where I trained when I was 16 to cut hair. So I've had a very, I mean, very dispersed and some might say checkered past in terms of my different careers, you know. But about every

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: 10 years I would kind of shift gears and do something different.

Rod Richard: Yeah, that and they're they're very different. you know, cutting

Geoff: Yeah, really.

Rod Richard: cutting hair and and being on stage are two very different things. But I'm I'm sure there's there's like parts of each one of those things that you can kind of draw from to kind of use in the other. I mean ultimately it's still you doing the job, right? And so your skills and your experience have improved in some regard, but there's probably some little crossover, however small, between the things that were you kind of can use one thing to kind of build you up in the other one.

Geoff: Totally agree with that, yeah. Especially using tools. It's very creative, isn't it? It's a craft. Stagecraft is a, in

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: fact, one of my passions about theatre was the actual stagecraft, know. The whole thing about conveying to an audience a story, you know. That did the whole, how one moves on stage, how you move your body, how you use your voice, you know, all of that. always resonated with me, big time.

Rod Richard: Yeah, my my brother just finished up his was it MFA. he's he's in England right now. Well, he's back home, but he'll be back in England. We're going out in December, to his graduation.

Geoff: Over.

Rod Richard: yeah, so he just finished a theater school. I can't think of the name of it, but but he was he was out there for mm

Geoff: at a theatre school.

Rod Richard: hmm. Mhm.

Geoff: So would it be Lambda or... You wouldn't know the name? No, no, Okay, No, no.

Rod Richard: yeah, no, I I know he's told me about a hundred times. I'd have to look I'd have to find my phone and look at it to he yeah, he messaged

Geoff: Sure, sure.

Rod Richard: me about it because we're we're talking about getting tickets just the other day. but but just kind of seeing some of the stuff he's doing because he was he was doing some acting and and some movies and stuff here in the States before he before he went abroad to to learn, but to see the stuff that he's doing and to see him on stage and he sent me like some clips of of different monologues and and plays and things that he's done. I'm like, man, you're like a totally different. Like it's just it it's so much more because you know, I know him, right? And so when I see him

Geoff: Mm-hmm.

Rod Richard: and stuff, it's like I just see him, you know? But but

Geoff: Yeah, yeah.

Rod Richard: recently the stuff I've seen him in, I'm like I almost get lost on thinking about who you are. Like you're somebody completely different. Like you've really figured this thing out. Yeah, it's it's really, really cool.

Geoff: Well, there's a thing that, it is cool. It's a funny thing about theater is I felt, always felt very at home on stage. And I used to think about that a lot. didn't I, why was it, I mean, I never used to get stage fright really. I used to just really relish the idea of going on stage. I was actually in a show, a play called A Man for All Seasons and Charlton Heston was the star. And do you know Charlton Heston? You know Charlton Heston, yeah. And yeah,

Rod Richard: Yeah, uhhuh. I've I've I've heard I've heard, yeah.

Geoff: yeah, he was a very big star. the thing about being on stage in a character is that you know what you're going to say, you know what you think. And you've got for those two hours or whatever it is, you've got a beginning, middle and end. So your mini life is completely sorted for you. know exactly where you're heading and what you've got to do and where you're going. And there's something, I don't know, there's something quite grounding in that, I found. But that's only with hindsight, looking back, thinking, well, why was it that I felt so comfortable on stage?

Rod Richard: Yeah. I that's interesting.

Geoff: Just a tool.

Rod Richard: I never I never I never thought about it like that. Whereas it's you have an opportunity as a character 'cause it's the life of the character, right? And so it has a beginning, a middle, and the end, you know exactly how it's gonna play out, which is very different than our own lives, right? So there there's probably

Geoff: Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying. Yeah.

Rod Richard: there's some comfort in that, like knowing exactly where you're going and you can kind of fully be almost you can fully be present, right? 'Cause you know exactly where you're supposed to be and how you're supposed to come across and present. Wow, that's interesting. I never

Geoff: Yeah. If you allow yourself to be, of course. mean, a lot of actors can't allow themselves just to be, you know, just and,

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: you know, there's the phrase, there? Less is more. And all of that.

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: I remember when we were at theatre school, not to go on too much about it, because we'll get on to the subject in a minute, but it's all kind of relevant, I think, isn't it? And in terms of what goes on on the stage, really is very much like it's just mimicking life really and giving an insight into how we function as human beings. And one of the big things that our teacher, a guy called Rudy Raphael Shelley, who was this ancient sort of Yoda looking guy, all wrinkled up, this little tiny ancient man who spoke with a very thick Austrian. accent would say, asked us what's the most important aspect and element or ability of an actor and of everyone was saying all kinds of things, know, like knowing your lines or speaking to the, you know, carrying your voice to the last person in the stalls and he just said simply listening to be able to listen and that's the

Rod Richard: Mm.

Geoff: trick with acting is to be able to be there and listen afresh every single night. and a lot of actors stand there acting at listening and they kind of wait for their cue, do know what mean? They're not really there really.

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: And it's very, very hard, because I achieved it and not achieved it, it's very hard to just allow yourself to be. But when you can, you have so much more freedom. Which is connected actually with parenting in terms of my thing about biologically aligned parenting. there's a very similar something going on.

Rod Richard: Yeah. Yeah, you know what what I'm I'm hearing you say that I'm thinking about just fatherhood in general, right? And I I don't I what for whatever reas whatever reason I see fatherhood kinda everywhere. Like I make connections to it all the time. But hearing you say that, right, and you're like that you have an actor on stage is kind of they're there, but they're not fully present. Like they're not they're just waiting for their chance to to say their line, but they're not like living in the moment. I think

Geoff: Mm.

Rod Richard: a lot of times we talk about presence with fathers and being present in the moment. Some guys feel like I was I was there, like I was at home, I w I made the time, but it's very different being present and being in the room. Right? Or or you know

Geoff: Yeah, really different. And I help dads, fathers with that very thing. know, dads who mainly like, not mainly, I help any willing parent, father or mother, fathers I do like to help. They're often founders, they're executives, they've got a lot of stress, a lot of responsibility and, you know, they come home. And the thing I bring to their attention is their state, the state they arrive, the state they are in when they arrive home. So a lot of fathers will, you know, come in if they've had a tough day, might slam their keys down and radiate and broadcast to the whole household just how

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: terrible their day's been. But that doesn't make for necessarily a very peaceful and calm household. It really doesn't. And so I help fathers realign themselves and check their state. Do I really need to share how I'm really feeling about my day with my children, with my family? Do I really need to let them know how things have been today? And it gets down to a choice and

Rod Richard: Yeah, yeah.

Geoff: awareness.

Rod Richard: Yeah. L let's let's talk about, you know, the

Geoff: Mm.

Rod Richard: so work you're doing with fathers. You you mentioned that you kinda started thinking about this parenting thing before you even became

Geoff: Yeah.

Rod Richard: a father. and so you started kinda thinking about children and human development and all that stuff. and you kinda mentioned you were thinking about your own childhood at that time. What kind of pulled you into it? What is it about your childhood or what is it about what you were trying to discover that kinda got you into this into this work?

Geoff: Yeah, I'm one of four children and on the outside, know, we were healthy, well dressed, did holidays, all that stuff. But I very much felt in my life I was on the outside and I knew my parents, well, I knew my parents loved me and cared for me. However, in life, I found it very difficult to just be in my life. it's no coincidence that I ended up on stage, I don't think. Because, know, being on stage, you can adopt a character. Of course you can. It can be something other than yourself. And I think that was very attractive to me at the time. Anyway, when I was at school, we had a weightlifting option in terms of our physical education, fitness. And when I was 16, 15, 16, I went to a gym and the owner of the gym there said, hey, you'd make a great weightlifter. I said, really? He said, yeah, Olympic weightlifter. So I joined the gym and a year or so later, a year and a half, I became British champion in my body weight.

Rod Richard: wow.

Geoff: Yeah, really weird. I mean, I had no idea about it. That was possible. the bittersweet, the irony of that is that the owner of the gym was a known paedophile, unbeknownst to me.

Rod Richard: Mm.

Geoff: And so stuff went on there with a few of us and my... sort of questioning came about, why couldn't I tell my parents? And now they're both passed and they never knew. And I just couldn't bring myself to share that experience with them. I was always very curious about that. And so I went into therapy at some point in my early 20s, trying to work out, what am I doing with my life? someone gave me a book called The Continuum Concept in search of happiness lost by Jean Liedloff. I read it and it was about her experience living with a Stone Age tribe in the Amazon. And it just hit me, like it just affected me in a kind of very visceral physical way. And so much so I went to, I found out where she lived and went to see her. and we had what she called therapeutic sessions because she's not a therapist of any kind and she sort of kind of mentored me a bit around my own childhood and the insights that I learned from her through her experience living with a Stone Age tribe who just did things so differently to us in the West in our modern culture so to speak that I basically felt that were I ever to become a father I would do my best to implement those insights, you know, and I did and we did and it was pretty cool. It was

Rod Richard: What yeah.

Geoff: very different anyway.

Rod Richard: say what what were what were those what are those insights? I mean obviously now

Geoff: Okay, well.

Rod Richard: I anytime somebody says something about a book on here, I I've got a list of books that I'm I'm trying to like work my way through. So now the continuum concept

Geoff: I bet you have. I know, we all have. I mean, I get the same, yeah, yeah.

Rod Richard: so continuum concept now I have to add to the list, but until

Geoff: Yep.

Rod Richard: I get to it, what are some of those some of those ideas or insights that that

Geoff: Okay, well she basically, this was all in hindsight, she spent about three years being with this community of the Aquana, they're called the Aquana. with hindsight, she reflected back and noticed things. And one thing she noticed was that children didn't, babies didn't cry so much. And there were no terrible twos, know, the tantrums. And teenagers didn't go through this weird transformation and rebellion and fighting. In fact, there was no fighting. And she described the ambiance in the village as one where everyone in the community were worthy and welcome. And that really struck her. And so she basically put together a few things that she noticed. One is she worked on the idea that Biologically, all children are born exquisitely social. Like exquisitely. They're not taught it, they don't need to be taught it. They are just born social. And what seems to happen along the way is that we think we need to teach them to be social, especially when they have behavior that we see as unacceptable or... antisocial or oppositional or whatever it is and that seems to get in the way of the child really becoming fully social and I've experienced this with my own children it's a very interesting something so she will say that well I will say now because I've lived it actually so I will say that in our modern way of raising as we say, raise. Raise is really a very creative something. You we raise the barn, we raise a barn, we raise cattle for meat or whatever, or milk. Whereas rearing is we provide what the child needs in order to grow and mature. And I think maturity

Rod Richard: Hmm.

Geoff: is lacking in all our verbiage around being a parent. And really it's about maturity, it's helping your child or providing the optimum environment as I see it through my experience and what I've read and researched, the optimum environment for that child to mature. how we basically lived with our children was to see their behavior not as a problem, but as a signal. and learning to read those signals, which were really a response to the environment not being what the child's body biologically expects. If you can grasp that. Can you grasp that? You're getting what I'm saying? Okay.

Rod Richard: Y Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I was gonna I was gonna say you you I've I've seen that you said like behavior isn't actually the problem. Behavior is

Geoff: No.

Rod Richard: a signal and you're saying that now. I get it, I think. It seems pretty straightforward, but if you wanna if you wanna break it down even further or or I guess

Geoff: OK.

Rod Richard: maybe s say it in plain language for somebody who's maybe

Geoff: Okay,

Rod Richard: not getting it, you know?

Geoff: sure. Okay, so child is born with innate expectations. Innate meaning they are come from all of our lineage, all our ancestors, all the time we've been here, gone down, gone down through our DNA, through our body, our biology, to expect certain things to be present when they're born. A bit like You know, they've got lungs in the expectation of breathing air. So when they come into the world, they expect certain things to be there in order for that child in terms of its body and biology to survive. So when those expectations are absent, the child's body will respond and it will respond in ways that we will describe as defiance, disrespect, rudeness. distance, you know, antisocial, difficult behavior.

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: So when I help parents really change their lens, instead of seeing the behavior as the problem to solve and manage, which let's face it, is exhausting. mean, you know what I mean?

Rod Richard: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Geoff: Really, modern parenting is about managing children. It's about managing. It's not about living side by side, it's about managing. And when I help parents to shift that lens through seeing the behavior, not as something you've got to stop, control, sort out, deal with, but as it telling you something, signaling something, and that something will be what the environment is missing for them in order for them to feel safe

Rod Richard: Mm.

Geoff: and certain. And it's all about safety and certainty. And so the expectations are, they expect to be when they're born, they expect to be next to you and carried, for instance. So, and that's quite a tough thing to talk to parents about who haven't done that, but everything is recoverable. It's all recoverable. So when I say carried, when you think about it, when a baby is born, it cannot feed itself, it cannot move, it cannot walk. cannot see very well, cannot hear very well. And yet what we tend to do in our culture is put it in a room somewhere else. You know, we have this monitor to

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: listen out for it to see if it's okay. And really, it's biological places next to us, like the animal kingdom across the board, actually, when you think about it. There's very few mammals that will separate their young at birth, but we do that. and we've

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: been culturally kind of, I suppose, conditioned to do that. We think that's what one needs to do, you know, when a child is born. The other thing is, one of the other expectations is the child expects to be in the presence of an adult or a caregiver that knows exactly what they're doing. And in our culture, you know, we kind of think,

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: well, children weren't born with a manual, you know, you kind of make it up as you go along, do you know what I mean?

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: When in fact there is a manual, but it's a biological one. And that's the manual we followed. And I'll tell you what, it's just, I can't tell you, it just works. The relationship just gets calmer, simpler, and easier. It takes less effort, less energy, and less time. It really does. When parents can just wean themselves off of this idea that, and panic that, you know, because it's very real, isn't it? When you see a child acting out, being rude, talking back or distant or you can't get through or whatever it is, it's a really troubling something for a parent. It really is. And one feels one

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: has to do something about this now because you care and love your child so much. What I'm proposing is having new information, a new lens through which to look so that it's, it obfugates the necessity for you to try and control the behavior and you start seeing it differently. Because once you see the behavior as something that's missing and once you understand what's missing and how to replace it or provide it, all that control of behavior just starts to fall away and the behavior that you think you need to control is no longer necessary. There's no need for it because the child feels settled and calm.

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: They feel safe and certain.

Rod Richard: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, but but it it

Geoff: that help? I mean, it's a lot to take, there's a lot to take in.

Rod Richard: is definitely a it's definitely a different way to look at at

Geoff: Yeah.

Rod Richard: things, right? Because I think I think what especially here in in America w one of the things that I and I've said this kind of a little bit differently, you're definitely deeper than than I've gone on it. is like a lot of times we will treat the symptom and not the sickness, right? So

Geoff: Yes.

Rod Richard: if we have if we have a cold, we take cough medicine, we get cough drops, but we never really treat the cold that caused the cough, right? We just treat the thing that annoys us. And that kind of sounds like like

Geoff: Absolutely.

Rod Richard: like what you're saying, right? Is the kid is being disrespectful, then we try to we try to treat that part of it, but we don't ever look at okay, how what is the what is the signal as you said

Geoff: Yeah.

Rod Richard: that's causing them to act that way.

Geoff: Yeah, what is the child requiring? And remember,

Rod Richard: And maybe we address

Geoff: Rod, it's not conscious. We think children sometimes manipulate us, they're trying to, you know, they're winding us up, you know, they're showing off, they're wrapping us around their little finger, all that stuff. But they're doing it unconsciously. That's why you can say to a child, why did you behave? Why did you do that to daddy? And the child will literally say, I don't know. And they don't know. Because it's a

Rod Richard: Yeah. Yeah.

Geoff: biological drive in them to feel safe and certain. So if you've got a parent who's umming and ahhing and not sure and looking to the child, as often a lot of modern parenting is about that, looking to the child for answers, it becomes a really scary thing for a child and they react. They react in four

Rod Richard: Mm.

Geoff: ways. They will fight you, they will run away, they will, metaphorically and physically, they will... play dead, when you're locking it to the animal kingdom, it's fight and flight. They'll play dead, it wasn't me, I wasn't there. Or they'll just go quiet, they'll go non-verbal. Or they will

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: disappear into an iPad, or they'll go to their room. They're driven, their biology drives them to feel certain and safe, and that's all it's about. So really, what I say to parents is, Parents are really environment makers. They're not managers. If they can make the environment the optimum for their child to feel free to be social and observe and watch so they can grow and mature, then that's really their responsibility. That's the responsibility. Because I don't see parents have a role or a job. It's not a role or a job. A role suggests it's a performance. A job is something that you do, let's say begrudgingly. It's a responsibility, really. It's a really profound responsibility. And once you grasp that

Rod Richard: For sure.

Geoff: from a biological viewpoint, things start to shift and things start to just shift. It's a domino effect. You change your behavior, your child's behavior changes. And that's it. in a nutshell, you know.

Rod Richard: Okay, so yeah, right. It it's it definitely definitely sounds sounds easier than than it probably is to do. so how how would how would we be able to tell what Like how would a parent identify what expectation may not be getting met? Like how do we 'cause you you

Geoff: with it.

Rod Richard: said they respond in in in a few certain ways, but like how do we know what is the thing that's this you know, what is the behavior a signal of? You know what I mean?

Geoff: Yeah, sure. Well, the behavior is signaling that something in the environment that they are living in is not what the biology expects. So the alarm goes off. It's like a fire alarm. One of my analogies is the fire alarm. In modern parenting, we try to silence the alarm whilst the fire is still

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: burning. don't look exactly what you're saying, isn't it? We look at the symptom and not the cause. And so all you All you need to do as a parent is start to look at, would I want to hang out with me? That's a good question to ask yourself. In this moment,

Rod Richard: Mm. Mm-hmm.

Geoff: whether you're tired, exhausted, or you're snappy, or you're aggressive, or you're short-tempered,

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: if you can ask yourself the question, would I like to hang out with me? And a lot of parents will come back with the answer, well, no, I wouldn't actually. I wouldn't like to hang out. you're

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: not very nice to be around right now. And so we can make sure that the environment we provide for our children is a calm one by looking at how we talk to our children and one another.

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: Are we rushed? Do we rush everywhere? Are we late? Do we grab the keys and storm out the door? All of that is going to unsettle the atmosphere in a very, very subtle way. But children pick up on, through their senses, much, much quicker than they do words. And parents from the get-go spend all their time mainly talking to their children. and all their children are communicating with is the body. Especially in the

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: early years, know, five, six, seven years, you know? A task I ask parents to do is to say, is to stop talking. Just stop talking. And I don't mean ignore your children, and I don't mean doing it with an attitude. I'm just saying be in your own space, be in your own calm and Focus on what you're doing and let them begin the conversation. Just do it for a day and see how that is. It's really worth trying.

Rod Richard: Yeah, yeah. That is that is definitely an an experience an experiment worth worth giving a shot. I think so.

Geoff: Do you think you could do that Rod? Do you think you could do that? What would that be like?

Rod Richard: I think so. It would be interesting, but but I think I think it's something that that I think because I'm I'm in this in this position and in this this kind of realm of of parenting and trying to do it the right way. I think I think I would be able to. I don't know how it would go. You know, I'd have to report back and let you know and let

Geoff: Yeah, no, no, sure.

Rod Richard: you know how it went. But I think I I am conscious of creating an environment that is that is conducive of of their growth and my own sanity. you know what I

Geoff: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rod Richard: mean? Like and I and I'm not like I don't feel like I'm controlling in a way, you know. I

Geoff: Okay.

Rod Richard: wouldn't say that I'm like there's like a thing now where people talk about gentle parenting. I don't know if that's even what it is. It's just I know that they are people too. and they are people who are less experienced than I am, and so I don't put adult context on them. Like I I kind of allow them to be Voyagers and like on this journey. and so I try Not all the time, I'm definitely not perfect. I try to allow them grace to

Geoff: Mm.

Rod Richard: grow in this environment that we've created. that

Geoff: Mm.

Rod Richard: doesn't mean that we don't get you know some behavior sometimes, and it doesn't mean that I'm not also giving them cough medicine and trying to treat a symptom or trying to turn

Geoff: you

Rod Richard: off the fire alarm from time to time.

Geoff: sure.

Rod Richard: But I I do and am introspective and retrospective like, okay, what was that? Like why that didn't even make like why did that happen? Why did I react

Geoff: Hmm.

Rod Richard: that way? How could I have done something differently? If I felt like I was maybe wrong, I can go back and have that conversation and apologize or you know, it I

Geoff: Mmm.

Rod Richard: feel like we've created a good two-way kind of conversation and two-way existence where I want them to be the best version. I don't have like some design of who I want them to be. I just want them to be the best version of them. And I think they also want to be the best version of them. And so we're like, you know, it's it's collaboration. Like we're working together. and so yeah, I think we could. I just don't know what you know I I don't know.

Geoff: Well, it's I suppose we're talking about peace and serenity really. It's only a silence away really, I think. And I think sometimes we can get bound up in the day, bound up with the tasks, the extracurricular from school, the, you know, I think I'm talking about... parents who... who feel a responsibility to make sure their kids are okay. Do you know what I mean?

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: So the morning comes and it's, have you got this? Have you got that? Have you got this? Have you got this? Here's your breakfast. You're kind of organizing your kids all the time. Not you personally, sorry, but many parents are because they feel if they

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: don't, there's gonna be chaos and... It's actually quite the opposite. Why I said start off with how often you talk to your children and what you talk to them about and allowing the space for your children to begin a conversation with you, something opens up there. Some space opens up, which is, I think, liberating for both the child and the parent. If you can just... lean into that and just trust and just hold on and just let it happen, do you know what mean? Instead of anticipating all the time. And you know, life is busy, isn't it? We've got challenges and... And so all I encourage parents to do is just to try little things. Little things impact the environment so much. Just if you're always late, for instance, don't be late. make sure you give yourself enough time so it's karma. Instead of saying, come on, hurry

Rod Richard: Yeah, yeah.

Geoff: up, I'm gonna be late. The child's body is gonna react to that. And they won't be listening to your words, they'll be relating to your stress, possibly anger, possibly frustration with them, that they're not moving quickly enough

Rod Richard: Mm.

Geoff: because you're late, sort of thing.

Rod Richard: Yeah, yeah. I think I that that definitely that resonates, right? Because, you know, I for a number of reasons. My kids are involved in a bunch of stuff and I feel like we're always like trying to set things up to make sure things run smoothly. Right, 'cause I'm I'm aware of all the things and they're kids and so they're only aware of right now. Like what's happening right now. And you know, I know that there's something else coming up. So in the morning we're like, We need to get this all these things lined up so we have ready. So when you go to school, we leave school, we have this ready when we go to practice and we leave practice. Like I'm trying to make sure that all the all the what we say ducks are in a row. And they're like, I just need to get my backpack and you know. I might put on my shoes, you know, I might we're yeah, like I I'm just tying my shoes right now. I don't even know what you're

Geoff: Well, yeah, they're in the moment, man. They're in the moment.

Rod Richard: talking about, Dad. Like I and it's it's it's funny sometimes because I'm like you d I have two really smart kids and they're really, really like aware and they're you know they're they're they're awareness level and they're smart sometimes. And then it's like in in certain moments it's like they're just completely oblivious to everything. And they're just like, I'm just tying my shoes. Like you you know we gotta go. You know what time we have to go, you know we gotta be at school, you know you have practice or whatever the thing is, and you just time is not it's a social construct. I really don't care what time it is, they're just kinda, you know, free flowing. And it and

Geoff: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rod Richard: it's it's it's one of those things where I sometimes realize that it's me and I've realized this with my whole family because they all are kind of like time is is you know it we'll get there when we get there and we'll you know we it's supposed to be there at nine nine is like an idea of what time we should get there. We can kinda get there at 9 15 we may get there at 901 but we you know then and I'm like nine o'clock if we get there at nine o'clock we're late. We need to be there early right if we're early we're on time. If we're on time we're late that's kind of just how I was raised, right? So

Geoff: you

Rod Richard: I have all these anxieties about like getting stuff together and being somewhere on time or getting somewhere early and they don't care about it and I'm realizing now that I have to take my own my own feelings out of it and stop trying to as you were said earlier stop trying to control the behavior right And I think I think and I I thought about this when you said it earlier. When you say stop controlling behavior, I knew or I think immediately guys hear that and they go, Well, what are we gonna do? Let just let children do whatever they want? And I thought about

Geoff: Yeah, that's.

Rod Richard: it too, right? It's like if I'm not setting that stuff up in the morning and I just let them do it, then stuff isn't gonna be done, you know? So

Geoff: Well, that's the initial response. Of course it is. And I totally get that. And I'm not suggesting for a second that suddenly you change everything. You just introduce it in little moments. So if you're on your children's back a lot, not you personally, but if one is on your child's back a lot, lean out of that. lean out of that and God, it's very, very delicate. It's a sum of many parts. It's not about suddenly having this approach. It's letting a new little awareness, a new idea, trying it on, coming in. Like, for instance, I often ask parents just to basically, just for an hour, don't initiate a conversation, just be there. Just be in the kitchen, they come home from school, just be there. And if they say hi, say hi. Don't go, how was your day? What did you do? Bah bah bah, did you do this, did do that? Just lean out of that, you know, and see what comes up. And they'll start talking to you about things that matter to them. Not being pushed away by your what matters to you. There's

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: a real difference there, you know? And if children just can't feel free enough just to be, they will start to adapt. And they will be that pleasing kid. They will be that kid who gots all the questions and wants to answer mom and dad and let them know everything. But there may well be something else going on underneath

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: that we don't get an insight of because we're shutting down the opportunity for them. So that's just one

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: small thing you can start to do. align with their biology because biologically they expect and as we all work towards and want a calm safe life. We all want that because that means we're going to survive and life's going to go on and our species will continue. That's God, that's nature, that's the biological drive and when the

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: environment is not safe that's when we start to adapt and respond. And I can't tell you how powerful it is. It is unbelievably powerful once you start to get into it. And just to answer what you say about dads who say, what am I supposed to do? It's all going to go chaotic. Well, then you start to look at your value system. what do you value most? how do you want life to be? You can start to make choices around and You know, often parents will talk to their children about the things they do and the children don't really want to do them anyway. They just do them because they think they've got to with their parents, you know? It's, in

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: our experience, we just followed our children's interest. And I didn't care if they were interested in, I don't know, flowers for four weeks or four months. Yeah, it's just for them to engage and respond to their genuine interest, not something we think is good for them or... something we think they should be doing or that our culture tells us they should be doing, it gets down to a very simple level, I think. I know. It's quite a bit to think about, isn't it?

Rod Richard: Okay. S so so when we're we're yeah, when we're we're parenting or we're we're leading with this understanding that, you know, the behavior isn't the problem and the behavior is the signal and we're trying to you know, I Trying to identify what the signal is telling us about their their biological expectation or you know the the overall overarching biological expectation is is safe and calm, right? Okay, safe and certain.

Geoff: Safe, safe and certain. if they can't, if they can't, if they, if you're, if you're saying, if you're acting like you're calm and inside you're wound up, forget it. All they get is your wound up-ness and they get the kind of... They get the lie really. Because what you're projecting isn't actually what your body is doing. know? And,

Rod Richard: Hmm.

Geoff: yeah. Do you know what I mean by that?

Rod Richard: You know what that that yeah, you hearing you say it and kind of the more I think about it and correct me if I'm wrong, it sounds like there's a lot of money enough, right? There's a lot of what you're talking about and a lot of parenting in in your framework that is about the you as the parent. Like not about how not necessarily about the kid. There is dive obviously a a large part of it that we need to understand about the kid and understand about just human development in general. But A lot of it is how we are showing up. the emotions and the environment we're creating as as the leader of this environment. because we're they're reflecting back to us how we are, right? You just like you said, you kind of the liar, right? Like we're lying about how we're actually feeling. They're seeing and feeling how we're actually feeling. So they're reacting to that. So so so a lot of it a lot of it sounds like us. Like we gotta we gotta fix us.

Geoff: Yeah. Well, do you know something? That's it. Because when you think about it, we are powerless over other people. We can't control other people unless it's through, you know, you got a gun to their head or that you're threatening them. You know, we are

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: powerless over people, places and things, actually. And that's that's good news, as they say, you know, for parents, because you can control yourself. And if you are the one radiating and broadcasting the environment, you've got to be very certain about the environment you're broadcasting. I mean, if you want your children to be social, helpful, capable, confident, to contribute, to trust them, to value them, you've got to create the atmosphere for that to actually allow them to develop that and live into that. Because they're programmed for it already. We are a social species.

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: You don't have to teach your children please and thank you. You don't. You don't have to teach them to be polite. You just got to do it yourself and they'll just join in because they're wired that way. Same as my children. We never taught my children please and thank you. They're the politest children you'll ever meet. They've got wonderful manners. know, in the early days

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: when Feng Shui was a big thing, I can remember we got all the books of, you know, if you've heard of Feng Shui, yeah, where you read...

Rod Richard: Yeah, uh-huh.

Geoff: Yeah, you set out your house and we decided not to wear shoes in our house. And our children were so high, like toddlers, you know. They were there. They just couldn't wait to get their shoes off when they got in the house. They just followed. We never

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: had to get onto them. once you can, it's like, you know like surfing? I if you ever surfed, I used to surf when I was a kid. It's catching a wave. If you can catch the wave. It just goes. And parenting is like catching the wave. If you can just catch the atmosphere and the environment that catches them, they'll just do anything. They'll just want to be and contribute. know, my children use scissors, they use knives, they lit fires when they were toddlers because they can. Children are incredibly resourceful, incredibly resourceful. because of our, it's almost like because of our care and love and our desire for them to be the best they possibly can. I think we often of shut down that possibility, you know, because it's quite a scary thing

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Geoff: to trust a child. You know, it's quite hard to trust our children. Don't you find, do you find that? Do you know what I mean by that?

Rod Richard: Yeah, yeah. And it's trust them in the sense that like they're not going to harm themselves or they're

Geoff: Yeah

Rod Richard: not going to they're gonna do it the wrong way. Right. And I think I think that's

Geoff: Yeah.

Rod Richard: a lot of times like we we We want so much for them to to do it right and not to struggle or not to get hurt.

Geoff: Yeah.

Rod Richard: And so we because we love them, we don't allow them the the freedom or the the autonomy to try to do the some of these things. Which,

Geoff: Yeah.

Rod Richard: as you mentioned, they're resource they they because they end up w we don't really teach them how to do it. Like we don't really teach our kids how to walk, you know? Like we put

Geoff: No, exactly!

Rod Richard: We put the borders on the coffee table and we protect all these things and we put bumpers everywhere and pillows on the ground because i i yeah.

Geoff: We put locks on cupboards, we put gates on stairs. You we didn't have any of that stuff. You know.

Rod Richard: Exactly. We do all we do all those things because we love them so much, we don't trust them

Geoff: Yeah.

Rod Richard: to learn.

Geoff: Well, here's something. There's a guy called Dr. Gordon Neufeld who wrote a book with Gabor Mate. You know Gabor Mate? He wrote a book called Hang On to Your Kids. And he says, it's not the love a parent has for the child that makes them easy to parent. It's the love the child has for the parent. That's really powerful, I think. And that's what I'm talking

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: about. The love we give our children isn't the love that biology requires, often. And there's this kind of mismatch, this misalignment. That's why I call it biologically aligned parenting. If you can align with your child's biology, where they require to feel safe and certain, if you can provide that, they are so social and so... They have the freedom to actually live into their biology, which is to be helpful, to join in, to copy, to emulate, as opposed to us teaching them. Do you follow me? One of the expectations

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: is that they will be on the periphery of life, not the center of it. And what happens in our culture, when a child's born, everything generally stops. Everything

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: becomes about the child. And the child's sitting there thinking, well, it's biology is thinking, what goes on around here? I want to know what goes on around here so I can watch and emulate and find my place so I can gradually slip in and join in with these people. Whereas we always look at the child and we focus on the child and it's all about the child. Very frustrating for a child. And you can see a baby that's very frustrated. They will arch their back. They want to be on you when you're walking so

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: all their energy can go away through you. But we put them in a box. And we push them around on wheels.

Rod Richard: Yeah, yeah. Man, that's that's so interesting.

Geoff: It's quite radical what I'm talking about, but it's actually not that radical.

Rod Richard: Yeah. Y what what are your thoughts on and I I'll be clear on Discipline and punishment I think are two very different things. I think

Geoff: Mm-hmm.

Rod Richard: punishment is reactionary, right? Like we have a behavior and then typically we punish based on the behavior, which y we've just discussed is probably not the right way to handle it because it's more about finding out what's causing the behavior and addressing that more more often. and I think discipline is more like standards or rules or things that kind of just this is just the way that we do things and and we don't do them the other w we're disciplined and we do it this way. I think Yeah. One of the questions that that I'm I'm having, I'm sure maybe other guys have, is is what does that look like in your framework? Because I think we think that discipline and punishment or rewards teach responsibility or accountability or respect or how to function in the world, right? Like we we feel like we have to teach our kids this way with these rules and these punishments or these rewards because that's the way the world's gonna treat them. What is you know, w in in your framework in your kind of, you know, biological alignment, what does that look like? for a parent or for a leader of a household.

Geoff: Wow, well there's an assumption there that if you don't employ those things there will be chaos and they won't be, you know, cooperative or responsible or whatever, whatever you want to add to that list. And in

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: my experience we didn't use any punishment, we didn't ever send them to their room, there was no rewards, there was no threats, no boundaries actually. There were no boundaries. And that doesn't mean to say we were, I'm trying to think of a word now and I can't think of it, I'm sorry. It doesn't mean to say we were like anything goes. It wasn't about that. It was about this catching the wave thing. It's like you can't, it's like modern parenting is like trying to teach a seed to grow. you can't.

Rod Richard: Mm.

Geoff: It already knows. All it requires is the environment, the right soil, the water, the minerals. And modern parenting is about often about taking control of the child's behavior, which is what discipline and whichever way you look at it, punishment and discipline is really. And if you start implementing some of these things I'm talking about, it might be a bit chaotic, it might be a bit mad, it might be really off the rails for a while, but I don't know a child on this earth that doesn't want to be connected to their parent, no matter how

Rod Richard: Mm.

Geoff: awful they are. about how rude, how aggressive, how violent. It's all because they aren't getting what they require, in my view. And I don't know a parent that enjoys punishing their child. I don't. It's a horrible thing. And that's

Rod Richard: Yeah. Yeah.

Geoff: biology. That's the biology speaking. It doesn't work. It's not right. And so what I'm proposing is a way of being with your children where it's less time, less energy. less effort. It's more effortless actually, but you've got to take a leap of faith, you know.

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: So here's something, when you look at... boundaries. Okay, boundaries are rules. And if you break the rule, there's a consequence. Yeah.

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: Then I mean, I came across a parent whose consequences were taking things off her child. And in the end, all the child had was a bed in the room. Because she can't do everything.

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: Because it means speaking the wrong language. You're talking to the child's mind when it's their body communicating. So let's say you send them to their room, you isolate them, you humiliate them by putting on the naughty step, you ground them, you take away their freedom. There's two, well, there's three places that happens. One, a prison. All those rules are in a prison. Exactly the same.

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: know, solitary confinement, less time, reward for good behavior, all of that stuff. It's also in schools and it's also in industry. And so there's a lot of work to be done, I feel, to, I mean, I'm trying to get into HR departments and dealing with dads who are exhausted through parenting. Because parenting is exhausting when you manage children. Children, it's

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: just exhausting, isn't it? It's draining. It's draining.

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: Taking them here, taking them there, doing this, going there, on and there. You've got to get it. It's just nuts. It's a nuts world, you know. Really nuts. I think. And to... to really look and see what actually, do my children really wanna be doing these things? Do they really, really want them or do I want them to do them? Because there's something I'm afraid of, that if I don't get them to do this, I'm afraid that this is gonna be, or that's gonna happen. And I think a lot of parenting operates through fear and anxiety and worry, which of course is what children pick up on all the time anyway. Do you know what mean?

Rod Richard: Yeah, yeah.

Geoff: It's a hell of a conversation. It's an amazing conversation to have.

Rod Richard: Yeah. I have I can I throw some scenarios at you and and and just

Geoff: Sure, yeah.

Rod Richard: kind of you know, kind of give to me like how how if I were biologically aligned how it would handle them. Okay.

Geoff: Mm-hmm. OK.

Rod Richard: let's say 'cause I'm I've got teenagers. My my girls I I rarely we rarely have to discipline them. Like I think they're amazing and I It sounds hearing you talk and listening to you just for this short amount of time, it sounds like we're doing a decent job of creating an environment. So I'm happy, but

Geoff: Yeah, sans it, yeah.

Rod Richard: I wanna I wanna make sure that we're we're doing things, you know, even better, right?

Geoff: Well I say Rod, say your energy, your vibe is a very calm vibe. Yeah it's nice. No it's nice.

Rod Richard: I try to keep it that way as much as possible.

Geoff: I mean you're nice and easy to listen to, know. It's nice.

Rod Richard: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. okay, so I've got a teenager. she'll be like I said, she'll be fourteen, and we're starting to notice she's obviously kind of trying to find her independence and determining who she is or who she's gonna be as a young woman. And so there are times where she maybe gets a you know, a little disrespectful. She she quips back or she says something, you know, that we're If I in my childhood would have definitely been considered talking back and I definitely would have gotten discipline for it. But I I feel like we're creating an environment where we're allowing her to advocate for herself or to to speak her mind. And so can't really punish her for that. You know what I mean? It's like i we've gotta allow her the the the space to say what she feels. But sometimes it borders on on disrespect. What What would I do if if I'm biologically aligned, what would I do in that moment when it happens?

Geoff: Well, it's going to start with you. You're going to be checking your state. So you're going to be seeing the behavior and you're going to be asking yourself, what am I not providing here for her to speak to me

Rod Richard: Hmm.

Geoff: in that way? What's missing for her, for her to push me? Because her response will be trying to correct the biology. In other words, it's not her consciously It's her biology driving her.

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: Although obviously she's conscious of how she's talking to you, the drive will be coming from a state of feeling unsafe and uncertain somewhere along the line. And it could go back days, weeks or years. And it's an

Rod Richard: Hmm.

Geoff: accumulative something. And like you said, which was quite telling, I think that you just started to notice stuff going on. So it could be

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: something that's been absent for her for a while. That doesn't mean to say you're failing or it's your fault. It's nothing to do with the parents' fault or failing. This isn't an accusation because we have been, I call it informed conditioning. Every movie we watch, TV programs, what we read is all about this kind of fairy tale kind of, what I call fairy tale kind of. family, know, where everything seems to be perfect and, you know, la la la la. You know, it's just not realistic. And I think,

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: I think parents try to live up to a standard, but they don't know why they're living up to that standard. Do know what I mean? And so

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: I would say, at your, look at your state and your wife's state. I'm assuming you have a partner. Yeah.

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: Okay. So it's mom and dad and you know, Do you have differences? What's the energy around your daughter growing up? What's your fears? Are you worried for her? Are you anxious about where she's going and who she's hanging out with? And how does that anxiety impact the atmosphere of the home? Or how you talk to her? Or how you listen to her, actually? So when she's doing all

Rod Richard: Hmm.

Geoff: this stuff, I use thinking, my God, she's being so rude to me. If I was rude to this, this, to my parents, they'd have given me a clip around the ear. They'd have thumped me. Should I, I just,

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: we have all these conversations in our head when it's happening. And my encouragement would be to notice how you're feeling around her behavior and start to look at those feelings and shifting your lens and instead of judging the behavior and trying to want to stamp it out or improve it or correct it, however you want to describe that, look to yourself and think, well, actually, how is it around here? How is it around her years of

Rod Richard: Mm.

Geoff: growing towards this age? Have we been anticipating this and carrying that in our behavior around? You know, have we been questioning what clothes she's wearing? You know, I mean, is she putting makeup on? Have we been anxious about the makeup going or whatever? Do you know what I mean? It's becoming aware of your

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: state and focusing on you. And you'll find, I promise you, if you can start to shift your state or become aware and park your state and keep that private... because it doesn't need to pollute this sacred space of home. can check that and leave that at the door. Now, let me just be here. Okay, okay darling, what's your concern? Talk in a very different way to her. You'll get a different response

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: from her. You really will. You get what I mean?

Rod Richard: I w yeah, I I I wonder you know, talking about my my my own state and and let's say anxiety or something and you we talked about their want biological expectation is is safe and certain, right? If if I'm anxious about something or the way I'm questioning her and if she's already assumed a certainty about it, could that cause her could that cause conflict in media like you know what I mean? Like if she If she knows or she feels certain about let's say I'm trying to think of a a scenario or something that might happen. going going to to the mall. Let's say she wants to go to the store and we're kind of anxious about her going to the store. But she's certain in her head and her body, she's certain that she's going to be okay and she's going to be safe. And then we we get all anxious about her going because we aren't sure of the environment and we think we know, you know, or we might know that it may be dangerous there or whatever, right? So I have my anxieties about it. She has her certainty and they brush up against each other. Right, that that would immediately spark some fire and conflict, right? Whereas I might need to, like you said, park my anxiety and then have the conversation around it, allow her to ex to share her certainty. And she might be right. Like she might have an I a better idea of the city. And I think that's the hardest thing for us to let go of as parents is sometimes

Geoff: Sure.

Rod Richard: we don't know everything and we aren't always right.

Geoff: Yep. Yep.

Rod Richard: We don't always know better. Like I I feel like that's a very, very hard thing to let go of.

Geoff: It's very hard and I really hear what you say there. And it gets back to how you listen to her then. If you can park your anxiety and then just have a conversation, there may be a compromise that she can accept because her body is not reacting to your anxiety. Do you know what I mean? So if you can be

Rod Richard: Yeah, yeah.

Geoff: calm, calm and kind and certain about it. saying, yeah, I hear what you say, you What's going on for me is this, this and this. And, you know, it's not that I don't trust you. You know, you can have different conversations with her. There might be a compromise

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: around getting to the mall, but you've got to go back in time a bit and see where all this has been brewing from, because it's a cumulative effect. If some of these expectations have been missing for the child over many

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: years, then it's gonna, it's gonna... be kind of, it's gonna take a bit more time to actually recalibrate, for them to recalibrate. If you follow what I'm saying then, to recalibrate.

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: But it's a great question. But I think it has to start with you and your state. It has to. Because your state

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: as the father of the house, and as... in your relationship with your partner, their mother. That is the real font of the vibe in the house and the atmosphere. And it needs to be a sacred place. It needs to be honored in a kind of...

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: needs to have some serenity about it. Like we never argued in front of our children. If we had a dispute... with Parkit, deal with it later and just be here, you know, and deal with the children. Because I wouldn't want to... I wouldn't want to, I was going to say, poison the atmosphere in a funny way. I mean, it sounds dramatic, but it does. It pollutes, yeah, pollute it. Yeah,

Rod Richard: Yeah. I I was just thinking pollute the environment. Yeah, that's the same. Yeah.

Geoff: pollute it. And I think we pollute the environment all the time, not being aware of it, because we're busy folk, we got responsibilities, the children there, they don't understand, we're in a rush. There's all this stuff we have to manage. It's tough. It's tough. I totally get parents that really struggle and feel exhausted. The biology also speaks to parents is knowing your own biology as well. It's listening to your own biology. When you're overwhelmed and exhausted, that's your biology saying you're on the wrong track. Parenting is designed in the animal kingdom to be a side activity. It's a side activity alongside life, whereas we make it a main activity and not a side activity. That's a bit of a statement, isn't it?

Rod Richard: Yeah. Yeah.

Geoff: Well, it's worth thinking about, you know. It's really

Rod Richard: Yeah. Yeah.

Geoff: worth thinking about. Carrying a child, for instance, putting a child in a sling and having the child on your body is far easier than pushing a bram around a buggy. It's much easier and more convenient.

Rod Richard: You know what? I'm hearing you say that and I talked to you prepod that we went on vacation. We were in in in Tanzania and we went and spent some time in the village with a with a local tribe and they just you know, they're they had the babies kinda tied to But and they're not just you know, being parent. They're they're working, they're washing stuff, they're cleaning, they're they're they're

Geoff: Yeah, and getting on with life.

Rod Richard: Yeah, they were gardening or not gardening I guess, but they were they were out in the fields doing st they were just

Geoff: Yeah.

Rod Richard: doing stuff and that that really brought home what you just said is it w is a side it was a side thing, right? It

Geoff: Yeah. Yeah.

Rod Richard: was like, you know, they they were still parents and they still had the kid and they they're they're addressing

Geoff: Yep.

Rod Richard: the kid's biological expectation 'cause the kid was close and the kid was

Geoff: Yeah.

Rod Richard: able to be with them. But it wasn't just parenting. Like they didn't stop everything that they had to do to just be a parent. They were doing all these things. And then maybe every once in a while they adjust and get the baby, you know, then they go back to doing whatever they were doing.

Geoff: feed the baby, maybe feed the baby, yeah, yeah, Well, the aquanah,

Rod Richard: Yeah, yeah. It w it was a it was

Geoff: the village that the gene lived with, the aquanah, it was nothing for a two or three year old be carrying a baby.

Rod Richard: wow.

Geoff: Yeah, just minding the baby, walking around, watching what's going on, you know, and the adults there will be beating or making something and the little toddler will come up, have a little bit of a play, get bored and wander off, know, do their own thing, you know, and gradually absorb

Rod Richard: Yeah. Yeah.

Geoff: it, you know. It's, whereas, you know, we send them to school, they sit down on a chair. can't imagine it now, it's just nuts. And they're just talked at all day, you you think they must come home absolutely, you know. And then course they come home to a parent and say, well, how did your day go? What did you do? How was this? you do this? know, beat me alone, you know. I just, I need some

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: peace, man. I need some peace. It's all about peace, really.

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: It's all about peace.

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: keeping it simple, you know.

Rod Richard: Can I can I throw one more scenario at you?

Geoff: Yes, lovely.

Rod Richard: So it's it's gonna be a teenage one. It's is I'm just curious. So you

Geoff: Okay.

Rod Richard: talked earlier about playing dead and and

Geoff: Yeah.

Rod Richard: so I I kind of connected that to like, you know, kids going up to their the teenagers, right? They go to their room, they stay up there all day, they're they're

Geoff: Mm. Mm.

Rod Richard: you know, they they only come out to eat and then they go back to their room, right? Like they kinda disappear. And and you've also said that, you know, we should give some silence and allow the, you know, kind of the natural conversation or natural energy to kinda come back to the room.

Geoff: Mm.

Rod Richard: When when when that's the case and we kind of have this withdrawn kid how do we how do we remain available without like chasing them to have the conversation or you know kicking down the door to kind of bring them back into the environment what is it how do we handle that because I know I know for a lot of guys who have these these teenagers they're starting to feel like they're losing them.

Geoff: Yeah.

Rod Richard: 'Cause when they're kids they just want to be around you and they wanna you know, dad's Superman, he's a superhero. And then now

Geoff: Yeah, yeah.

Rod Richard: they're teenagers and they're trying to figure themselves out and now they just want space and they wanna do their own thing or you know, they're less wanting to spend time with you and they wanna spend time with their friends and they're starting to kind of what what I've heard guys tell me that I work with is that they're pulling away. Right. How do we how do we still remain emotionally available without feeling like we're completely detached and how do we get them maybe not get them back, but feel that connection. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Geoff: Well, yeah, you want to get them back, don't you? I know what you're saying. You want to get them back. Of course you do. Well, they want, the thing is they don't want to be in a room. They want to be, they want to be connected. Their biology is driven and they're in the room because all their attempts to get what they require have failed. And so they're, they, have to adapt. So the responses is either to change it and make it the way they require it, their biology requires it, or to... get relief to the discomfort. And so when children retreat, it's a relief mechanism because they can't, their biology is taking them away because it's too painful. That's my view. I can give you an example if you'd like. Have we got time for that? Okay. So I had a mother come to me. Her 12 year old son was in his room all the time on Xbox. He was rude, grumpy. He wouldn't help with her chores. She tried to include him with visitors. He was just, you not interested. She was a single mother in a high-powered job as a trader in currency. So she'd arrive home and the child would already be at home. It got so bad that she was leaving his food outside his door.

Rod Richard: Hmm.

Geoff: So she came to me and we met and had a coffee. And all my work is with conversation, it's all conversations. There's no modules to watch, no, I don't give parents more to do, I give them less. It's all about less, yeah. So they don't do journaling and all that. Anyway, so we had a chat. The question I ask parents, and I guarantee this, I always guarantee my work, yeah, we highlight something they want to change. And if it changes, they know that what they've been doing has had an effect. So they know the work has worked. And she said to me,

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: all I'd like is for my child to be interested in me. Now a single mom, she comes home, she's give, give, give, give. Nothing comes back for her. That's what she'd like.

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Geoff: So we started working, a phone call a week, every two weeks. I'll give her things to think about. And so she changed how she spoke. She changed her routine. She changed so many things about her life in that house. Couple of months went by, she rang me and said, something happened tonight. I said, what? So I was in the kitchen, Matthew, her son, came to the door and said, hi, mum, how was your day? And she was just so shocked. Now, it may not sound a lot to a lot of parents, but for her, that was a milestone. And from then

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: on, the whole thing started to shift. And she got more and more confident, more and more focused on her life, not him, what he's doing. He was applying to a scholarship in another district in a school. and the mother started dating again because she felt freer. She'd met a man,

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: months went by, they got together, the son got into the school and they moved to a new district. All from how she changed, how she showed up in the house. It's just, honestly, Rod, it's so powerful, I can't tell you. But we have to steel ourselves. It

Rod Richard: Yeah, yeah.

Geoff: goes against everything that we think we need to be doing. as a parent, a father, you know? And fathers are

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: really key to it because fathers carry a different kind of energy than mothers, you know? They really do. It's a very impact, more of an impactful energy, I feel. You know, the weight of a father's concern about something is a heavy something to come into the home. Do you know what I mean? In my view. In my view.

Rod Richard: Yeah, yeah. So so if if if we you know as as fathers we we agree, right, that that we have a a large impact on the household and we realize finally after you know maybe some time of turmoil or chaos in the house, right? And we realize after hearing this conversation that it maybe it's us and we're polluting the environment or our own pressures and anxieties may have contributed to all these years of of conflict. What is the first thing we should do?

Geoff: first thing.

Rod Richard: Once we know this I think the first thing I think would be awareness, right? Have some awareness about it. But then

Geoff: Yeah, yeah.

Rod Richard: then what?

Geoff: So accept really, you have to accept that the behavior is not personal. It's not against you and is not wholly conscious. That's tough, because a lot of parents get very hurt and wounded by their child's behavior when all their child's body is trying to do is get what it requires, so it can survive. And it's a neuro, it's all to do with the neuros... the neurology, know, polyvagal theory, there's so many, there's lots of science that backs all this up. So you have to accept that it's not personal. That's a really important thing. So that when they're slinging all the shit at you, so to speak, you don't react to it. You know,

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: it's their body speaking, not them. No child wants to hurt their parents or destroy their parents or break the bond. They don't. are biologically. compelled to be connected. They are. And doesn't matter how horrible they're being towards you, they don't want to be that way. And often parents, children will feel really mortified how they've treated their parents. And that's because something else has been driving them. They haven't consciously thought, right, I'm going to beat my father up today. He's got it coming to him.

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: It's more of a biological drive. So that's a... First thing you can do is accept that it's not, but don't take it personally. That will lift a lot of stuff. It will, because your reaction will be very, very different.

Rod Richard: Okay. Okay.

Geoff: know, some kids swear and talk disgustingly to, they kick parents. I've had clients who've

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: been kicked and pinched and bitten by the kids, you know? And it settles, it settles, because there's no need to kick them, because they're feeling okay, they're feeling safe and certain.

Rod Richard: Okay. If i there's i you know what, this is this isn't this is an episode I think we can go on forever 'cause I I had tons of questions 'cause is it w it it is a def di a different way of looking at it, right? Like just just a s a aligning with biology versus like I don't even think it's verses. There's no verses here. Like I think I

Geoff: There's no versus.

Rod Richard: think yeah. But but there there feels that way because of of what society has told us or what we have beliefs we formulated on how we parent, how we discipline, how we guide or correct or control or whatever. Like we do we're supposed to do those things and then there's, you know, what you're saying is we kind of create an environment and we we mon we don't monitor the environment. We we keep the environment in the in a kind of a homeostasis, right? Like we keep the environment safe and certain. And we have to separate ourselves personally from we have to we have to not be the character, but we have to play the character, right? Where we take our own person out and we are just the father in this in this environment, right? I'm not Rod. Right.

Geoff: Fath? Yeah, you're the father. Fathers are so important. a father, God. The father. has to. regulate himself. He has

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: to demonstrate to the children what's worth being frightened of and what's not. In other words, what is really life threatening and what isn't. So a lot of our behavior, when it makes a child unsettled, is a perceived threat to their survival. It's a perception,

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: not an actual threat. And so I think a child can only regulate itself through its parent in the formative years. That's how it learns. If you understand what I mean by regulation, it's

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: one of those terms, I don't like it, but it's basically about understanding the environment to know what is a threat and what isn't. So if we're going completely nuts over a piece of paper that we're reading from an envelope that's telling us we're overdrawn in our bank account, 10,000 pounds more than we should be, we start reacting and going nuts. To a child, that means danger. That means the world isn't safe.

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: Whereas we think that's not right, I need to deal with that later. I'll call the bank this afternoon. now I'm here. Do you know what I mean? It's a different thing.

Rod Richard: Yeah, yeah.

Geoff: It's very subtle, know? Just changing. how quickly you talk. Because if your speech is really, really quick and click, this, because you've got this anxiety going on or you want to get the answer quick, that's going to disturb the environment. And so it's about being

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: calm and measured and enjoying being in control of your body and your mind as a father, instead of being hijacked.

Rod Richard: Yeah. Yeah.

Geoff: You your shit, the shit you've got to deal with. Don't let the shit hijack you away from your kids. Don't. Take control. I can deal with that later. I'm here. They need me being this and I'm going to be this. And the thing you mentioned about apology, can I make, can I push back on that a little bit?

Rod Richard: Yeah, yeah.

Geoff: I think the thing about this work of being biologically aligned is you can always reconnect. There's a whole thing in therapy called puncture and repair. You can always repair it. So let's say you do fly off the handle, you do lose your shit and you are, you know, whatever you are, and you catch yourself. The thing to do is not to apologize to a child, because you're deferring to them for their approval, which they don't expect. They expect you to be

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: in full control. So I would never recommend apologizing to a child. But what I would say is something like, I got extremely loud then, didn't I? I got very angry then. I'm back now. Here I am. I'm here now. That's a much reassuring position of leadership and command for a child to feel safe. Instead of going, I'm sorry about it.

Rod Richard: Okay.

Geoff: I'm sorry I was really angry with you. No, say, I'm back now. I'm here. I brought it back. I'm here. So you reassure them that they're now safe. you know?

Rod Richard: Okay. Okay. Yeah. I you know what and I I think because they're learning from us then us being able to do that and have the presence of mind to to address that and come back to it and it shows them that they also can do that. Right? When they have those situations like, Yes, it's going to happen, but this is how you handle it handle it and they're

Geoff: So, yeah.

Rod Richard: seeing you handle it and that's how they learn to do it.

Geoff: Yes, yes, without needing someone's forgiveness. Because you're

Rod Richard: Yeah, yeah.

Geoff: an independent man, you know what you're doing. You know when you're in and you know when you're out, or you're on or you're off. I'm back, here I am,

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: all's good, here we are, let's carry on.

Rod Richard: Yeah. Yeah. I like that. Jeff if if if guys are are are wanting to get more information 'cause this this I feel like we can just keep going back and forth all day. Like I I'm I I love this. but but it i i yeah. In the in the interest of of time.

Geoff: Yeah, yeah. Me too, and I could as well, because I love talking about it. I just want... Yeah, I know.

Rod Richard: I was gonna say where where where can people find the parenting assumption and and learn more about biologically aligned parenting?

Geoff: It's on my website called and it's Jeffrey Owen dot com. G E O double F

Rod Richard: Easy.

Geoff: R E Y O W E N dot com. And if you do forward slash ask ASK, I've trained a bot on all my writings, all my books, all my stuff. I've done it over the last six months. It's been. Although it's AI, it's been a mammoth task to program it. So

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: you can go to that. bot and ask anything. You can start off with saying, look, I'm really bored of parenting. My kids are pissing me off or whatever. You can start off the conversation and it will have a conversation with you. It won't pretend to be me, but it will be referring to all my works and all my philosophy and all the stuff that I've written about. And you can download the conversation if you want to. And that's jeffreyon.com forward slash ask. And that will get you in. It will tell you all about Biology Line Parenting, will give you all the expectations and it will really encourage you and support you in shifting the way in which you respond to your children. And on

Rod Richard: Okay.

Geoff: my website, plenty of opportunity for a free conversation. And there's no obligation. I don't sell. Absolutely I don't sell. I will talk to anybody about it. And I love talking about it. So if anybody wants to... book a call with me, go on my website, we can talk for 45 minutes. I've got various programmes that

Rod Richard: Okay.

Geoff: you can do, but just conversation sometimes really is enough just to shift it. A bit like this, we're

Rod Richard: Yeah, yeah.

Geoff: talking about it now, you think, actually, yeah, maybe I could, I'll try that. It's all that kind of

Rod Richard: Yeah. Okay. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. I'll

Geoff: Yeah. Awesome. OK.

Rod Richard: make sure that's in the in the show notes for everyone. and in the description or wherever you're listening or watching this at. it'll be

Geoff: Okay.

Rod Richard: there for you to to click through and make sure you you get all the information that you need. I got one last question for you.

Geoff: Okay.

Rod Richard: We've been talking about, you know, leadership and and creating this kind of sacred environment. I'm gonna kinda kick this back to you personally. If if your daughters could kind of describe how it feels when you enter the room and you create that environment, what would you hope they say? And and they're older now, right? Like they're they're they're older they're they're women now at this point, right?

Geoff: Mm. Yeah.

Rod Richard: But maybe maybe yeah, maybe you probably answer it now, but also looking back to when they were when they were younger and they were still children, you know, what what would they how would they describe that environment?

Geoff: that they are, it's a worthy and welcome environment. They are worthy and welcome. The atmosphere here is that they are capable and competent and they are, they They are capable and competent and trusted and valued. And they will say that even to this day. And in fact, we've just come back from a camping trip. We went into the woods, had log fires, all that stuff. It's just wonderful. And we just spent two days just talking around the fire. Just me and my little girls, my son-in-law, who's like a son to me really, he's lovely. just talking, just talking, chatting, doing nothing. But it was just such an experience. And I get my children enjoy being around me. They want to be with me. They want to tell

Rod Richard: Mm-hmm.

Geoff: me a good sign is when they bring their problems to you. They want to be close and they bring their problems to you. They trust your judgment. It's interesting with the girls. There's only certain things they bring to me and there's certain things they bring to their mother. And I like that. There's stuff that they don't share

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: with me that they share with their mother and vice versa. because Helen would often say, Elsie mentioned something about that. I said, did she? really? OK. OK. Yeah, yeah, well, we talked about that. OK, all right. But I think my children would

Rod Richard: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Geoff: think, I think my children. I think my children like me. I think they like me. And that's, you know, I mean, it sounds as,

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: that's really important, isn't it?

Rod Richard: One hundred percent. One hundred percent.

Geoff: You you guys out there listening to this, please, please give it a try. Give some of the things I've mentioned just a little try. Try it on for size. See how you get on. You know, I'm here to chat if you want to. That's become my life mission.

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: know, I'm in the twilight years of my life, haven't I? You know, I've managed to get this stuff written down in the way that I found a way of doing it later on in my life. And now really, apart from doing this, I'm retired. And what a great way of spending the rest of my life is trying to share what I've, you know, learnt and experienced with others who are willing to take it on, you know?

Rod Richard: Yeah. Well listen man, I I I thank you not only for taking the time with us today to sit down and talk about about fatherhood and and talk about just the journey and and our our roles and responsibilities as as leaders and environment creators and and and men But also for the work you're doing outside of this one conversation because you're doing a ton of stuff that I think is extremely important. I think we both agree that fathers are extremely important and and how we show up and how we present ourselves and the environment that we create. definitely changes not only our family's trajectory but but those that are that are around us that are orbiting us right like that that get to spend time in space with the people that we create space for. and so I want to say thank you personally for you taking the time and for you doing the work. and I really, really appreciate it.

Geoff: Thank you Rod and I concur with you. It has a knock on effect. yeah, it radiates out, you know? It radiates out.

Rod Richard: Yeah. Yeah, 'cause I'm I'm sure I'm sure how you how you showed up for your daughter and how you are still showing up for her has impact on on your your son in law, right? Like he's getting to experience her because of who you were and now he's also getting experience you because of who you are and I'm sure it has an impact on him and then when they have kids he has his own father to draw from, but he also has you to draw from and

Geoff: Yep.

Rod Richard: then that's like again, that's how we I d I don't know that any one of us is going to change the world, but if each of us do our part, we have an opportunity to at least change the trajectory of the way things are going. And

Geoff: Absolutely.

Rod Richard: based on how things are right now, we all need to work together. We all need to work together. Right?

Geoff: well there's a whole conversation. I mean what a time to be alive. There's so much going on isn't there. There's so much and it's so

Rod Richard: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Geoff: bad, so bad but you know God willing. Yeah we will prevail.

Rod Richard: Yeah, brick by brick, you know, one step at a time, one foot in front of the other, one household at a time, you

Geoff: Absolutely. Yep. Yeah.

Rod Richard: know. Just keep continue stacking good days and you know, it won't it may not be in our lifetime, but great grandkids or great great grandkids may get to experience it. You know, where I say all the time, I'm I'm planting a tree for shade that I'll never get to experience. But I'm still planting

Geoff: Wow, I like that.

Rod Richard: and I'm still nurturing and I'm still trying to, you know, set things up for future generations, you know.

Geoff: Yeah, well really that's the work isn't it? That's the thing, is it's all about the children really, in the end. The future, I feel.

Rod Richard: Yeah.

Geoff: I like that planting a tree, the shade of which you know won't experience in your life.

Rod Richard: Yeah. I gotta keep that I gotta keep that idea, you know, it keeps

Geoff: That's beautiful. Yeah, yeah.

Rod Richard: the big picture, right? It it helps you in those moments when you're stressful and the world is chaotic and things are going crazy. It's like I d this is all for a reason, you know, it's all for a purpose and

Geoff: Yeah.

Rod Richard: I can let go of it and get back into, you know, the big picture

Geoff: Yeah.

Rod Richard: and makes it makes it a little bit easier. Yeah. All right. Thank you, Jeff. Again, I appreciate it and w I look forward to talking to you soon.

Geoff: Well, anytime. I'd love to talk to you more. Anytime. Let me know. I'm here. And thank you very much. I've really enjoyed the time together, our time together. It's been great.

Rod Richard: Absolutely. All right. Hey Jeff, listen, I really appreciate you giving fathers something honest to think about. Now listen, guys, you may agree with every part of this approach or disagree with parts of it or still be processing it. The question worth taking home is simple. When your child struggles, are you responding only to the behavior, or are you paying attention to what actually might be happening underneath it? You can learn more about Jeff Owen and biologically aligned parenting at jeffreyowen.com. That's G-E-O-F-F-R-E-Y-O-W-E-N. dot com and you can find his book The Parenting Assumption through Amazon. Jeff, listen, man, thank you again for joining the Forfeit Fatherhood podcast. Until next time, fathers, stay present, stay active, stay in love, stay involved. See you.