Video summary
Jonathan Haidt explores how modern parenting styles, particularly those influenced by liberal progressive values emphasizing gentleness and constant comfort, may inadvertently create overly sensitive children. He argues that when parents avoid saying "no," rarely raise their voices, or shield kids from any form of stern correction, they deny the child essential opportunities to learn self-regulation. Haidt illustrates this with a vivid analogy: if you train a system on a specific type of stimulus, it becomes hyper-sensitized outside those bounds; similarly, children who are never exposed to manageable discomfort lack the resilience needed for adulthood. He introduces the concept of "antifragility," borrowed from his colleague Nassim Taleb, explaining that just as bones and muscles strengthen through stress rather than being protected entirely, human beings—including immune systems and psychological makeup—require setbacks and challenges to grow strong. A critical component of this argument is the necessity for children to learn how to accept injustice, a skill often overlooked in contemporary upbringing. Haidt notes that while authoritative parents strive to be fair and listen to their children's explanations before punishing them, life inevitably presents situations where authority figures make mistakes or treat a child unfairly. Children raised with trust but also exposed to occasional unfairness develop the ability to say "okay, it happens" and move past grievances quickly. In contrast, those who have never faced injustice may enter adulthood expecting perfect fairness everywhere; when confronted with reality in workplaces like universities or businesses, they can become difficult employees unable to cope with criticism or negotiation tactics such as "cranking on confirmation," where a business partner exploits their leverage by threatening deal collapse unless terms are met. To build this necessary resilience, Haidt emphasizes the importance of "risky play" and the pursuit of thrill, concepts supported by research from Norwegian psychologist Ellen Sandseter. He points out that children universally seek out dangerous activities like climbing trees or skateboarding down steep hills because these experiences allow them to test their abilities and learn to manage small risks in a controlled environment. This evolutionary programming prepares individuals for the dangers of the real world outside parental protection, such as navigating nightclubs filled with "scumbags" or dealing with high-stakes business negotiations. The experience of fear followed by safety on a roller coaster or after jumping from a tree changes the brain, teaching children to face threats without panicking and melting down, thereby fostering quick thinking and emotional stability under pressure. The discussion concludes that shielding children from all danger creates fragile minds just as it would create weak bones if one forbade physical exercise entirely. Haidt shares his personal experience running nightclubs in the UK for over a decade and half to highlight how unprepared individuals struggle when faced with aggressive tactics or unfair treatment because they lack prior exposure to such dynamics. He warns against creating an "Overton window of sensitivity" where even minor deviations from comfort zones feel like severe deregulation, leaving adults unable to handle normal human friction. Ultimately, the goal is not to eliminate discomfort but to ensure children develop antifragile psyches capable of enduring life's inevitable challenges without breaking mentally or emotionally.
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I wonder how much of it from the liberal
Progressive side comes from this very
softly softly gentle approach to
discipline and parenting because you
know I I hesitate dropping into bro
psychology this early in a podcast but
it like if you think about your level of
discomfort exposure what you're what
you're comfortable being uncomfortable
with how often has someone told you no
how often have you been told that you're
in the wrong how often someone raised
their voice at you how often has someone
been Stern you know all of these
opportunities are are times where you
learn okay I can self-regulate this is
this can happen to me and I'm still safe
this can happen to me and I'm still
loved no one's going to abandon me this
isn't comment on my moral character or
my worth as a human this is an inbuilt
part of being a fallible flawed human
that makes errors and Mom and Dad are
going to say you don't hit your sister
you don't do that go your own timeout go
sit on the St and sit on the step until
you've calmed yourself down and if
you've never experienced that and you
like you don't even need you don't need
need to know anything about human
psychology to know that if you train a
system on a type of stimulus it will
become hyper sensitized when you get
outside the bounds of that stimulus yeah
and that's where we are that's right no
I think that's perfect um I can just add
a little psychological color to it in
two ways uh one is to bring in the
concept of antifragility which I hope
many of your listeners are already
familiar with um you know some things
are fragile glass is fragile you don't
let kids play with it it'll break so we
give them plastic which is resilient uh
if a kid drops it it won't break but it
doesn't get better uh but some things
are antifragile um they need to be
stressed and strained and dropped and
and and suffer setbacks in order to get
strong uh and this comes from my NYU
colleague Nim TB so bones and muscle are
antifragile if you raised your kids by
saying I never want you to put stress on
your bones you know never go downstairs
take the elevator you know their bones
are going to get weak same thing with
muscle the immune system is anti fragile
and kids are antifragile so that's
that's like the psychology underneath a
lot of what you were just saying but
then there's other one which I haven't
really talked about publicly because it
sort of can easily get taken out of
context maybe that'll happen here when I
never we have the most unreasonably
reasonable audience on the internet
you'll be fine okay it's really
important for kids to learn how to
accept Injustice now let me quickly keep
talking so that that doesn't just get
taken out of cont
um you know oh you know John height you
know white guy says that people need to
just suck it up and accept Injustice no
but but the situation that you just
talked about you know like you know no
you do not hit your sister time out and
it might be the case that your sister
hit you first and maybe there's more to
the story and so maybe your parents are
actually treating you unfairly and in
general we would say you know
authoritative parents would always hear
them out like why did you hit your
sister tell me why you know if you can't
justify it we'll punish you but some
sometimes sometimes things are unfair
and if you're a child who is raised
where in general your parents you know
you trust them in general they they're
fair but sometimes they're not sometimes
they're just not and you just learn like
okay you know it happens I'm a little
mad and I'll get over it okay now fast
forward 15 20 years imagine you're an
employer hiring two recent College grads
one of them has never had to face
Injustice one of them everything was
always fair and if they thought it
wasn't fair they could say I think
that's unfair and then they could work
it out another kid had authoritative
parents who sometimes made mistakes and
sometimes was treated unfairly who would
you rather hire and I think what we're
seeing in universities is that there's a
certain kind of activist young person
who who sees flaws in the world and
thinks that they see everything as it is
and they should never have to accept any
unfairness and they can just become very
very difficult to to work with because
they're used to getting their way so
yeah we're doing kids no favors with
this sort of you know gentle you
shouldn't have to do anything that
doesn't make you comfortable like no
sometimes in life you do have to do
things that make you uncomfortable or
that you know or that you think you have
to respond to situations that you think
are unfair I spent a lot of time running
a big events company in the UK so I ran
nightclubs for for a decade and a half
and one of the things that I very
quickly uh realized stepping into that
industry is it's full of scumbags I was
was trained in the art of scumbaggery
but uh you know if I'd gone into that I
I had this really interesting experience
because I was a university right so I
was seeing and I was doing two business
degrees did a master's in and a
bachelor's in business stuff but I was
running a business and from doing NTI
you get to see HR marketing B2B b2c
hiring firing every you see the full
works right it's a full gamut of
everything so I was getting to learn
about business 101 but I was also
experiencing business and what I was
being taught and what I was experiencing
were diverging very quickly but the
interesting point here
is up until you leave University most
people
can campaign their way out of situations
that they don't want to be in this is
wrong the uh standards that this
professor is holding me to are too high
you know we've seen this happen a good
Bunch etc etc etc right people when you
enter the world of
business someone doesn't need to play by
your rules they can they can bring you
up to the brink of signing a contract
your balls deep in lawyer fees
everything's ready to go you bet the
business on it and they can go uh by the
way this is It's called Crank on
confirmation is is the the actual tactic
and they just crank the [ __ ] out of you
and they go hey um yeah we're going to
pay 20% less are this Deal's dead in the
water and you go no wow you can't I've
got I I'm I'm and yeah we know that
you're this deep in it which is why we
want to pay 20% less like the way
business works like this is what crank
on confirmation is and it happens in
night life over and over and over and
over again my point being if you like if
you're unable to deal with someone
coming and twisting you or you going all
right well I know that you need me let's
let's play a game of chicken here with
who needs who the most you're just going
to be so disregulated that you can't
deal with anything my point being this
sort of hyper I think of it like an
Overton window of sensitivity you know
you have the entire gamut of Human
Experience and then you have this range
within which you're uh familiar the
tighter that you make that any small
movement outside of that is going to
feel like like disregulation and I
suppose as well this gets into something
I've spoken about with Dr animation and
and and tons of people to do with child
rearing the importance of risky play and
why that's so important yes that is such
a key word and that this is something I
think that won't be as familiar to uh to
listeners um you know even listeners who
might have read the cly in the American
mind or might know about the importance
of
play there's really interesting research
there's a a play researcher from Norway
named Ellen
sanser and she has a couple of papers
from 2010 and more recently on the need
for risk specifically risk and thrill
and the key word that I really resonate
with is thrill so you know we know that
even if you know kids need to play but
we don't want them to play in any place
dangerous we don't want them to climb
any trees as far as I can tell um New
Zealand is the only English speaking
country left in the world where children
are allowed to climb trees you know like
I remember you know at recess when I was
a kid if there's a tree you know
sometimes we'd climb a tree um but we we
sort of decided we have to keep kids
safe from danger so nothing that could
have any real danger but what s Ceder
points out is why are kids seeking out
danger why is this almost a universal
feature why are kids doing things that
they're almost certainly going to make
them get hurt you know why are boys
doing jumps on their bicycle they know
they're going to get hurt why are kids
skateboarding down steep hills they know
they're going to fall at some point and
the reason she says is because part of
our evolutionary programming is to test
our abilities learn to manage risks that
are small risks uh because life is full
of R once you're not protected by your
parents boy is life dangerous out in the
jungle out in the wild out in the world
of nightclubs um so we have to part of
our our mandate as a child is try things
that are a little bit dangerous and you
get to select how dangerous it is and so
you know when I would take my kids to
Cone Island here in New York City you
know big You Know M Park area um there
the kids like in the car there would be
so much discussion of like are you gonna
do the Thunderbolt today or the you know
the slingshot like oh no that's no
that's too scary for me you know
everyone they're all trying to adjust
but then once they do it they come off I
mean they are jumping they are
exhilarated The Thrill is what they've
been craving and what seder says is it's
that process of being afraid being
really afraid like the roller coaster
it's about to go over the top and it's
about like you're really afraid and then
on the way down you're screaming and
it's thrilling and pleasurable and
fearful and then when you get to the
bottom and you make it off the other end
it's just thrilling and when you do that
you're actually changing your brain you
do that over and over again and you
develop the brain of a person who can
face down some scumbag or some person
threatening them who can actually deal
with threats and stand their ground and
think quickly and not just panic and
melt down so our kids need risk and
thrill that means they're going to get
hurt they're going to sometimes break
bones um but the alternative is to keep
them soft so that they're going to break
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