YES please do a video on therapy talk!!! I have had several toxic relationships where I think this was part of the issue, but the use of therapy talk always made me feel like I was the bad guy or in the wrong.
@@shakenbacon-vm4eu: "just" doesn't do it credit, as I've seen both it, and, for lack of a better term, "woke speak", be used to veil the iron fist of HR in particular and Capital in general. It's not only manipulation, but depending upon who says it, threats and coercion also.
I think ppl should have to commit to a year of therapy before they're allowed to use any therapy jargon. Cause a lot of ppl are usin those words and they know just enough to get themselves in trouble lol
I'm in my 60s, I've raised kids, and helped raise grandkids, niblings, and grandniblings. My usual go-to has been "Hey, can you give me a hand with this?" followed by explaining what I'm doing and how I'm doing it. I speak in adult tones once they can walk, I let them know that they are my successors and eventually peers. I shy away from punishments and rewards. I compare what I am hinting at or asking to actions they've seen from family and friends. I try to always remember that I have a lot more experience than them, and therefore they may not be able to communicate what's going on with them. When I get unexpected reactions we slow down and talk it out. Teach the kids as you're raising them. Remember you are helping to form their foundation. You don't need to coddle, but you should definitely listen and if they are being illogical figure out why. Put yourself in their shoes.
Yeah ngl I think most of the harm my parents did was them just forgetting what its like to be a kid. All this therapy speak nonsense is just that but more insidious.
thanks for leaving the advice! as a hopeful future parent, it's reassuring seeing the advice from someone with a lot of experience raising kids match a lot of what I strive to provide to any and all children in my life!
There are times to coddle and times for challenges. And allways remember especcially with very young children, that what ever the challenge is, it is with a high probability the worst and hardest thing they ever experienced in their way, so it is understandable, when they react that way.
The mafia comparison is so good. The influencer was so proud of herself for the "but you don't have to say that!" point. Why is that good? If you need to act like the cops have bugged your house, maybe you shouldn't be communicating these ideas at all!
I'm a teacher and a parent. Kids need and deserve honest, direct, and specific instruction from adults. "Gentle" parenting is cowardly, ineffective, and dishonest. F that garbage.
@@glassjestercowardly is the exact word that came to me! This style is for people who are uncomfortable saying "No" or setting and enforcing clear rules and boundaries, and it does no favors to the child. My mom is a teacher and she is very clear about rules, consistent with consequences, and carries no grudges or resentment afterwards. She respects the intelligence and capacity of her students, and her students respect her and overall behave very well.
As a former marriage and family therapist, raised by a leader in marriage and family research/therapy space, MORE OF THIS. I was raised very normally without all the psychobabble, and it drives me crazy how my beloved field helps people weaponize words. Therapy should not make people turn into dicks, full stop.
I have a feeling there's an inescapable arms race element at play, though. Manipulative people will use whatever means are at their disposal to manipulate someone. If someone well-meaningly disseminates new language that makes people feel like they're valued and their needs are being taken into account, manipulators are going to learn to use that language dishonestly. If people become better educated in spotting abusive behaviour, abusers will want to get their accusations in first so their victims have to go on the defensive. I don't really see a way around that, it's like trying to invent a gun that only the good guys can use.
This reminds me of a Calvin and Hobbes comic where Calvin is hammering nails into the coffee table. Mom comes in and yells, "What on earth are you doing?!" Calvin looks at the nails, then at her, and asks, "Is this a trick question?" 😂😂😂
Interesting that you mention Iran and Japan as places with high context languages. I used to have an Iranian boss and a Japanese coworker, and me, a Dutch person, had to do the cultural translation between them all the time because there were so many misunderstandings. It was quite interesting to be honest, for example the Iranian boss not replying on the weekend because she wanted to give the Japanese colleague a proper weekend, but the Japanese colleague getting offended because he interpreted it as his question being too stupid to even be answered.
4:55 as a neurodivergent person this stuff is so difficult to follow. i can usually understand one or two levels of indirect communication (e.g. "i would like to get some food", or "im kinda hungry right now") but as soon as you abstract it further (e.g. "are you hungry?") i tend to lose the message
Same. I struggle so much with people who don't appreciate that I really don't understand this because 1) I am not looking for it and 2) assuming it in all contexts leads to more miscommunication than not so it is just easier if people are more direct.
This! My mom would say, "Would you like to set the table?" And then get mad when I would say, "No." I told her so many times that it sounded like I had a choice and to please just directly tell me what she wants me to do if there is no choice. She never changed, but eventually I learned that if it was something I would never really want to do, I probably don't really have a choice.
I think this is why I tend to say “are you hungry? I’m hungry.” It just makes more sense. People can’t actually read my mind (no matter what my anxiety tells me), so they don’t know that I’m hungry if I don’t tell them, and asking if they are means I can then offer to get food together or to excuse myself to go get food if they’re not hungry.
@@roadrunnercrazythis actually touches on something I kinda wish to point out. I know us neurodivergents struggle with picking up this information, but the neurotypicals do too. They have big communication issues that, when revealed, are like the unraveling of a thread, where some of it is neat to see that one saw the other more favourably and was being a caring partner, but in other cases it exposes a underlying acceptance of social norms that are out of date for the stage in which the relationship is in.
bc ur pfp has a circle and the comment has a +1 in it seeing this comment activated the same part of my brain that finding a ring (ie Chloranthy Ring +1) in a dark souls game does. i may have a problem LOL
@@languagejones, OK. I’m gonna need another video. “High content indirect communication” as you describe it sounds like passive aggressive to me. Thanks for sharing all of your expertise in these videos!
Passive aggressive isn't a linguistic concept I guess. The cultural context and particular sociolects are always going to influence what's perceived as passive aggressive (which is real but I think can't be defined by an objective standard)... If I put "Regards" at the end of an email rather than "Kind regards" that's passive aggressive in my communications. To some people it probably isn't...
As with literally everything, balance is the answer. No parent parents perfectly, and no child is perfect. At any rate, one of my favorite memories is me arguing with my four year old daughter that she needed a bath, and saying, "This is not up for debate," which is not a great way to talk to a kid, but I'm human. Anyhow, my daughter very forcefully argued, "It IS debate!" which...is a great point. At any rate, I tried to raise my daughter by treating her, if not as an adult, then as a human with her own wants and needs and desires, and she's grown up to be an employed college graduate with a committed partner who she likes, and she seems generally happy. As those were my primary goals as a parent (the partner part was optional, but if she wanted one, I wanted her to have one), I feel like her mom and I did okay.
Ironically, I didn't mention it in the video, but I'm a huge advocate for treating children like people. It's just not fair to expect them to have cognitive skills they haven't developed yet.
@@languagejones Exactly. And as when my daughter asserted that it was a debatable issue, it's important while parenting to occasionally recognize, "Oh, hey, I'm doing that wrong." At the time, I laughed, and said okay, and let her explain why she didn't want a bath, which was not a great argument, and ultimately, one she lost -- but she at least felt like I'd listened to her, I think, which goes a long way.
Basically, you respected your child as a child and as a person. That goes a long way to help smooth out parental imperfections. The type of language is just the opposite, treating the child as someone to be manipulated through veiled threats.
4 is such an interesting developmental stage. I told my daughter at age 4 that life isn't fair and she got SO MAD. Literally could not accept the unfairness of life. It was kind of sad. Like, I feel you girl, it sucks but it's still true :/
A friend of mine just *moved out of his house*, is crashing on a couch and is technically homeless because when confronted about bills, his room mate would respond with therapy talk such as "I'm drawing a boundary, I will not engage with you", and when he had very rational reactions be dodged on bills would be accused of being "Dysregulated". Apparently distance and ghosting aren't just ways of dealing with trolls, they're a way of dealing with creditors. For the love of god, please PLEASE do a video on therapy talk.
There was a gentle parenting video where they kept asking the kid if he wanted to do the task they wanted him to do and he kept saying "no" so they kept rephrasing the question over and over until he gave in. People in the comments were thoroughly confused, this isn't communication? Doesn't this just teach him that his 'no' is meaningless? Yeah, probably. I really don't think social media gentle parenting is at all the same thing as the original theory itself. Ideally it's more like authoritative, but some people are so averse to potentially being authoritarian that they back into permissive. Or play weird mind games I guess. It's really frustrating because I really like a lot of the principles of gentle parenting, but what's showcased on social media is giving it a really bad rap and (the immortal classic) misinformation for money.
I disagree, it's about having realistic expectations of your child's behaviour and then responding appropriately. I hate sounding cold, but as someone in my mid30s, i judge the adult tantrums mislabeled as "emotions" very harshly. We have normalised adults having violent rage fits way too much as well as passive aggressive stonewalling. It shouldn't be considered normal for an adult to "take revenge" on their baby for popping in a diaper, or a toddler wanting a toy, or a 9yo forgetting their homework, or a teen wanting to go party with friend. It's not about "helping parents control their emotions" - if they were that volatile they'd smash their fridge for not boiling water. It's about NOT considering and treating kids as adults making choices at their expense (I didn't come up with the last one, but it just rang so true).
@@anne-vc7bgI only half agree with you. I agree that parents should have realistic expectations of children's behaviours. However, I don't agree that just because a parent loses their temper it means they are emotionally volatile. I'm not a parent, but through volunteering with kids, I do think kids can sometimes be genuinely frustrating. They are capable of violating other people's boundaries e.g. teasing, hitting other children without regard for the word "stop", and also they are capable of throwing tantrums to get their way. I've seen some kids roll around on the floor screaming and crying because they don't want to leave. Of course, verbal and physical abuse from an adult in response is NEVER okay and should NEVER be normalized, and I say that as someone who experienced both a lot as a kid and is suffering many long term mental health issues now as an adult, but responding in a calm manner without snapping or raising your voice in those extremely frustrating situations is a challenging skill that takes practice. (Those behaviours are parents losing their temper, but it's not the same as an adult tantrum, taking revenge, or abuse.) The worst part is, sometimes when the parent doesn't raise their voice at all the kid takes it as a sign to ignore them, so it's a huge challenge for the parents to communicate what they want in a way that is both respectful to their kid and will be respected by the kid.
@amysteriouspersonintophat1458 kids aren't toys made to be enjoyed - they're dependents meant to be cared for. They're always frustrating, so is being stuck in traffic or doing the dishes or dusting. It's not about kids not being annoying or parents not being annoyed - having realistic expectations means that you have a plan B in your sleeve. To clarify: you have a RE that cars drive on road, therefore you look both ways before crossing it - yeah? You have RE that the highway is going to be packed during rush hour, therefore you plan accordingly and don't have a meltdown when you're stuck in traffic - yeah? Your local grocery store has predetermined working hours: you check it before heading there at 3AM - yeah? Who is surprised that kids can violate personal boundaries - it is not unexpected that a toddler demands to follow you to the toilet or a 10yo wants to see what you have in hand or a teen rolls their eyes and calls you stupid for not understanding how important a 50$ pencil with a celebrity's name on it is - it's not a secret, or a surprise, or something the person who physically made the kid didn't experience. ... You don't get upset with your dog 💩 on the carpet if you didn't walk it for 12h or a cat tracking litter after using the litter box, there's nothing surprising about a toddler having a meltdown in a grocery store: you know it may happen as soon as you take your toddler grocery shopping with you - you go in with a plan to deal with it, or you don't bring them with. It's also not about responding in a calm manner - they're not voice activated AI: you can AND SHOULD yell at your kid DON'T TOUCH THAT if their reaching for a hot stovetop. Your (as a parent) emotional responses are what the kid uses to understand the world: staying up 5min after bedtime should not get the same response as trying to stick scissors into wall sockets, and stuttering through reading "peanut butter" when they're learning to read is something you plan for (like traffic during rush hour) and thus no matter how annoying as it is, you have the duty to either power through it or maneuver around it when you can't. 99%-85% of things kids do is what we adults know how to handle in a good enough way, making it a choice and not "something that happens". A toddler can tell if you're 🤢🤮💩 with severe food poisoning (though they don't know what to do or how to help) - they can also tell when you're just being an AH. It's not a challenge to communicate with a kid, it's a challenge to communicate as an adult with someone who can't read your mind. We're adults, if we say road safety, we automatically go through a list we learnt, from weather conditions when driving to buying a LED collar for a dog to enhance their visibility at night - we interrogate kids before a crosswalk if they see any cars without explaining why that's a thing and kids are so easy to communicate that they do answer if they see any cars: from the parked ones behind them, to the ones driving towards them, to the ones on a t-shirt. It's not a huge challenge to communicate for the parents: it's just about giving coherent information instead of barking keywords. Even just "wait until I say go, wait, go" is good enough to direct 75% of toddlers to cross the road by themselves. Because kids are easy to communicate with, they just can't read minds, while you as a grown az adult kinda can: 🤔 my toddler is playing and having fun, what would they feel if I'd tell them we're going home ASAP 🤪 ... 🤦 Seriously? I totally get meltdowns from not wanting to leave a fun time are annoying, but FFS let's not pretend the kid is being weird for not wanting to leave - that's why you give them warnings like "5min" or explain why there's a rush, or try to bribe with a candy, or apologise and physically carry them to the car then try to make it up to them later. There's absolutely nothing reasonable or decent in playing dominance stonewalling against a toddler who's in such distress that they scream, cry and flop like a fish on the floor in public. I'm gonna be honest - kids have tantrums and they're normal, but at some point it turns into the parents being so 💩 that the kid feels they can't do anything feasible enough for survival except a meltdown. Every living being tries to achieve positive outcomes with their actions, kids know not how to, adult know how not to.
It reminded me of when I took a job at an insurance company cca15 years ago and they taught us tricks like, "I'd like to make an appointment with you, would it be more convenient for you on Tuesday or Thursday?" When I said I was not good at manipulating people, they said, "We don't MANIPULATE, we motivate the client to make a positive decision!" I didn't last long.
@@Robespierre-lI When a person is legitimately in therapy, there is a high likelihood that they will catch on to other people using that kind of language. I'm living it firsthand.
I love your "Are you hungry?" example. A long time ago and only a few years after my wife and I married, we were back in her hometown visiting with her parents. I was driving us in town, and my mother-in-law said, "Oh look, there's a Burger King." I replied, "Oh, and there's a bank" and kept driving. It wasn't until later that my wife told me what I missed. We still laugh about it, as does my mother-in-law, who has learned to ask me directly for something she wants since high context cues weren't anything I grew up with.
Wait, you genuinely thought she was pointing out a Burger King, like some sort of badly undertrained tour-guide? “On your right, you’ll see the Burger King, established in 1977. Despite the name, it has no monarchal authority, but it is known as the best place in a two-block radius to purchase a mid-quality, low-priced meal.”
I've pretty much trained my friends to be totally unsubtle at this point with my complete inability to notice any subtext whatsoever. I wanna say I feel bad people have to act differntly to me but nah, it's been great to actually be properly communicating with my friends instead of all of us ending up frustrated playing the "am I gonna finally get it?" game. Also, specifically with the car thing, I do just randomly point out things I see so they all now know that "ooh, coffee shop!" does NOT mean I wanna go there...
It's making me realise why I sometimes end up fighting with friends and partners about where we eat... Because they'll take my "oh look, an X!" as a sign of my true preference, instead of the burst of recognition that it actually is 😅
I don’t believe you. This is how my father talks when he is fed up with people being indirect. You know what she meant and this was your way of saying “I don’t take hints, talk directly to me if you want something”.
Not a parent, but I am an English teacher...and I wish I had as informed an instructor regarding how to approach middle-school children in terms of effective use of language. Your content consistently gets me to think and rethink about how I do things in the classroom. Sometimes I'm happy; sometimes I see places where I really need to adjust my approaches. Thanks!
@@ElegantHamster-d7s As long as we combine it with training for the men to stop viewing assertive women as all sorts of negative things they don't associate with other men, this could be super helpful in general.
I think Therapy Talk is such a big topic you could do a series on it. Its use can be really positive too in some cases. Therapy basically saved my parents marriage, I think because they learned how to talk about their feelings and wishes less confrontationally. Just constructing sentences with "I feel like X is really important to me right now and I would like you to make more effort to do X", as opposed to "You never do X! You don't give a shit about me!"... To me that's therapy talk. Maybe therapy neologisms is a subset that's different and more unhelpful though?
I've always talked to my son like he was my equal. Of course I haven't been perfect, but I make it a point to apologize when I mess up and to be understanding when his own mistakes happen. I try to frame it as we're learning together, because I sure as hell don't have all the answers. Also count this as my vote for a therapy talk video. That shit has been driving me nuts for years. I really enjoy your content. ❤
This! I'm a grandparent and I was there when this started to happen. I wasn't only a parent but involved in La Leche League and founded a large unschooling group- both filled with the type of people who would be early adopters of things like this. I actually closed down my unschooling support group because new parents coming in were talking to the it children this way and I found it disturbing and highly disrespectful to the children. And the children were miserable. I mean really unhappy along with either being withdrawn or aggressive. They would ignore when asked to do anything like get in the car in the car to go home. Then when they had to do it (because everyone has to go home) they would throw fits. The parents would back off and try to get them in the car "gently" using those gentle treats. I'm a behaviorist- okay, just a canine behaviorist but this is so fundamental to behavior that it was obvious. The kids had no idea what the parents were trying to do but they did know that a fit could get the parent to back off and they'd get what they wanted.
Loved this, and found the mafia bit hilarious. I also endorse the idea of a video about therapy talk and perhaps more generally about what happens when technical language goes mainstream and what is lost along the way. “Emotional labour” is a great example to me: what was intended to identify jobs in the economy which involve hiding one’s feelings or pretending they are something else (this is commonly but not exclusively found in hospitality and retail) now kinda means feeling alienated towards social obligations or annoyed by interpersonal tasks.
The examples from influencer parents remind me of Ruby Franke (the Mormon parenting influencer who ended up being arrested for horrifying child abuse). In addition to constant punishments, she used to use a lot of passive aggressive language and veiled threats with her children. She described it as if she were building perfect parental authority by ostensibly never losing her cool or raising her voice... when clearly she was just confusing and scaring her kids a lot and teaching them to mistrust anything she said and be ready to be hurt at any time. I'm not a parent nor do I want to be one, so I try to stay out of parenting discourse, but what you correctly describe as mafia threats are just very obvious red flags even to me. These parents are treating their children like enemies who have to be broken and brainwashed so that they obey.
I’m not a parent, but I AM a huge language nerd & this video was still super interesting! And I’d love a video about the misuse of therapy speak! I dated a guy in the late 2000s who was an early adopter of it…and it drove me crazy then, but it drives me even crazier now, because he was in school to become a psychologist himself & at least he had a decent grasp of the terms he was using, and used them correctly.
Thank you so much! I’ve got some really fun ones lined up for the next few weeks. I usually aim for Wednesday and make Friday at the latest, so you can take a few days off from hitting refresh…but I do periodically do livestreams at odd hours
I think, like other psychological terms, the meaning of “gentle parenting” has been warped by frequent misuse on the internet. People have decided that it means whatever they want it to mean (like with “narcissism,” “gaslighting,” etc.). But I believe the intended use actually equates with “authoritative parenting,” like the examples of healthy parenting you gave. Thank you for this video 😊
Honestly I thought gentle parenting had more to do with avoiding corporal punishment and using other discipline techniques. My parents didn't use corporal punishment but I wouldn't say it was particularly gentle haha. My dad is so long winded one time my dad gave me a lecture and by the time he finished I was 25 😭
@@t_ylr basically yeah. gentle parenting was SUPPOSED to be an alternative name for authoritative parenting (nurturing and supportive but firm boundaries and high expectations and trying to resolve problems through communication and mutual respect) because "authoritative" sounds a lot like "authoritarian" and initially influencers were worried people would get those two mixed up. now it's basically any parenting style that can be disguised in therapy talk. you aren't supposed to threaten your kids at all in gentle parenting but i guess people absorbed the style of speaking before any of the principles.
@@ishathakorI think a lot of people (me included) are uncomfortable setting and enforcing boundaries and rules. The shortcut of language manipulation is really tempting, but it's ultimately counterproductive and makes things worse. We need to face our discomfort and communicate clearly so that the kids learn to do that for themselves. Clarity and consistency are so important when interacting with children!
Language changes. Grow up and accept it Plus only low and slow people use words without knowing the meaning. J6st stay away from l8w people, in real l7fe and on Social Media.
I had never thought about it in those terms but that logical analysis of "good kids get to keep their toys" brought back some memories of being an undiagnosed autistic kid and not understanding why adults were allowed to change the rules without saying. "The kids that have cleaned their rooms get to have cookies!" -When I was really young I just cried because I didn't get any cookies without them telling that I wouldn't get them. --When I got older, sort of age 8-10, I would become even more frustrated because it just seemed like word tricks, and I called it "opposite language" because I had to add a "not" when trying to figure out what happened if I didn't comply with the positive scenario they described. In reality, it'd probably be better described by calling it "negative scenario painting" or something like that. If only I had the language of logic at that time (I still don't in English because you use all sorts of Latin mumbo-jumbo, modus ponens, etc.)
I had a bit of logic (as a part of non-calculus math, not linguistics or philosophy) at the university, not in English. This is a terminology used there, it's not specific for English. I believe it's better to learn how these theorems are proven and what they actually are than their names. To clarify, I have neither experience nor expertise to tell you if it will help you. I liked it on it's own (don't remember much now though), but I don't think I ever really used it for anything
@@MassimoAngotzi If you look into what autism actually is, it's basically just "not being particularly bright" when it comes to social skills and non-literal communication (among other things), so I guess you are right on that front. But I'm not sure you're getting the underlying logical problem with those statements: My parents were telling me stuff that had no consequence if you took the words literally. They weren't saying anything about the kids that haven't cleaned their rooms. You have to know that it's an exclusive statement, like when you say "I have 10 fingers" you mean that you only have ten fingers, but logically speaking that doesn't have to be the case: Like when someone asks you if you have 5 dollars, you don't say "No, I have 500.000" because if you have 500.000 you also have 5. Likewise, if you have 10 fingers, you also have 5. Knowing what people mean in those situations is a combination of understanding context clues; you usually don't need to divide the number of fingers you have, while money is maybe the one thing we apply the most arithmetic to, and body language and tone of voice clues. You usually get better at context clues as you get older, and I have a pretty good ear for tone of voice these days (but it's not as useful outside of my particular dialect of my particular language), but I still misread or simply don't understand body language all the time.
@@MassimoAngotzi it actually might be and what you're doing here so inconsiderately is just doing an ableism by dismissing it without considering why they came to the conclusion. It's true, I wouldn't necessarily expect non-autistic children to get these things either, but that's usually not because they're not bright, it's because they lack the depth of knowledge to actually deal with these kinds of statements.
I had no idea when I opened this one up that my favorite grammar nerd was going to give me a push to finally find a therapist because of the way I was damaged by my parent’s child-raising style.
Oh wow that’s deep. For what it’s worth, I refused sponsorship from better help because of their shady practices, so make sure you find someone you trust. And full disclosure, I’m *not* in therapy (yet!)
@@languagejonesfor what it’s worth, thanks for not taking that sponsorship. It’s nice to see someone who cares about their audience more than their wallet. ❤
@@qwinlynmy guess is that at least initially, it was less creators not valuing the wellbeing of their watchers and more them failing to do rigorous research on the potential sponsor and not thinking about the consequences.
Here's your truth table (columns 3 and 5 the same affirming that the contrapositive is equivalent, 3 and 4 differing show the fallacy of denying the antecedent): p | q | p -> q | ~p -> ~q | ~q -> ~p ------------------------------------------------------ T | T | T | T | T T | F | F | T | F F | T | T | F | T F | F | T | T | T
Coming from a computer science background this table is so confusing to me bc it kinda "sounds" like equivalenting correlation with causation (ie p and q both being true doesn't mean p leads to q). I understand that's not what it actually means but I just can't understand who thought this was a good way to represent what they wanted to represent
Another + 1 for a video on therapy talk! Also - regarding the putting the toys away phrasing - it reminds me of some in-service training we had years ago in our high school (I was a high school languages teacher for many years) We were told to rephrase our requests always in the positive. So we had to remind pupils in the corridors "Walk, thankyou!" rather than telling them to stop running.... at the end of class we had to say "When you've finished the page, then you can to out to breaktime". And so on and so on..
Can you pass the bread? Some adults would say that using the conditional is more polite: Could you pass the bread? Because the if clause is implied: if it's not too much trouble. But kids wouldn't see a distinction. Also my dad would often say at dinner: "I don't seem to have a napkin." As kids we didn't know what he meant. Years later, we realized this meant: I don't have a napkin. Who the hell set the table.
My mum used to say things like "would you like to clean the kitchen while I'm out?" and while I'm sure the couple of times I replied "...not really, no" were deliberate sass, I certainly interpreted it as a sort of gentle suggestion of something I might do if I was bored, rather than an actual request.
I recognized quickly that a small kid won’t really understand that phrase so I tell her all the time that when I say “can you xxx” or “could you please xxx” I mean go do the thing now. It’s not a request, it’s a command.
@@fervensmortis Well 'could' is the past tense of can. Could is also a modal verb. The conditional implies the 'if' clause. As in 'if it's no too much trouble.' They're two different words with different meanings. But young kids might not make a distinction.
I would love you to do a video on 'gay voice'. I'm a gay man with a combination gay/Australian accent. I know there's a documentary on this but I'd be fascinated to hear your take. Thanks!
Gay voice is a super interesting topic to me as a trans man. I've had people get mad at me over "acting so flamboyant" because my voice is an octave and a half lower than it used to be but I struggle not to use the same tones and inflections as I was socialized to use growing up.
definitely interested in the ways therapy talk is often misused, but strongly encourage some focus on how it can be used healthily and constructively. It's pretty much inevitable that the video will end up mischaracterized as "therapy talk is always bad" but i think there's some value in at least reducing that misreading.
Agreed, therapy speak is problematic because it's being used incorrectly. It doesn't represent actual therapy, and the root concepts and terminology can be still be genuinely helpful to understand and utilize. Something like how to set and maintain healthy boundaries is absolutely worth knowing, and it's super frustrating how people who fundamentally misunderstand how boundaries work are using them to try to control others or avoid responsibility.
When I was growing up in a culture pretty heavy with indirect high context communication, it (or at least how my mother used it) seemed really toxic. Felt dehumanizing even in some situations. In the way it was just thrown out there into the universe as an off-hand innocent remark while actually being a strict command. When just directly and calmly asking would accomplish the same goal more effectively, because at some point I just got so tired of how that communication felt that I started rebelling against it. Maybe it was about who I am, maybe about how she used it, but safe to say I'm not putting my children through that.
5:08 It could mean a number of things. Another possible one could be you're on a road trip and you haven't eaten anything for 5 hours and she is trying to gently tell you to eat something. Or she could literally just be asking. Or maybe she is just bored and looking for a topic of conversation. From that simple phrase, it is impossible to really know.
Was not expecting statement logic and my friends modus ponens and denying the antecedent to make an appearance this episode but I was pleasantly surprised!
8 minutes in and I continue to be glad that my Tiktok exposure as well as my social media parenting exposure is limited. I had no idea that is is what is being called "gentle parenting" in 2024. 100% they missed the entire point. I usually call my parenting principles gentle/respectful parenting but that's just because I don't hit my kids and I try my best not to yell or lose my temper and if I do, I apologize for it. I treat my kids like people and if they're not doing what I want them to do, it's usually because of something that they can't communicate effectively yet - so I try to give them the language for it and have appropriate expectations. When did gentle parenting turn into this nonsense? Yuck!
I did expect formal logic to make an appearance, but not this video specifically. My intro to linguistics prof told us a couple times throughout the semester that there were a lot of places where computer science and linguistics kind of meet. I really like this middle ground
Yes please! More videos about language and raising children. As an education assistant, my colleagues and I constantly lament on the condition of parenting and how it affects the children we work with. While some bad parenting techniques are constantly, I think parental influencers are at the heart of the questions we educators ask when we complain about what’s going on with parents and kids these days.
Great video again Mr. Jones. Without outside influence from a UA-cam parenting master I found I picked up some of these questionable techniques, mosty due to the fact I was exposed to them when I was a wee lad. But I remember my aunty telling me one time, she said "Chris, these things your dealing with will come out of you one day in action, it's important you recognize when they do so you can stop it." not word for word though the general idea was there. I feel sorry for my eldest because I spent the first few years of raising him doing on him what was done to me, and as an adult I do experience some of the lovely side effects you mentioned too. Anyway I'd just like to mention I didn't get your latin reference there in the middle but I appreciate you pointing out there are still things in this world that I don't know, which is most things anyway. All the best to you and anyway else who is reading this, or isn't. Cheers, Chris
I'm pretty sure the best way to get your kid to start acting more mature and like an adult... is to treat them like an adult, including communication wise, where those veiled threats would NOT be the way to talk to another adult.
Wow, this video is fantastic. Im always not following what people say, and have always said I prefer a "direct style of communication", I never knew my weakness was context and assumptions people make pn my knowledge and what they share with me. This video has revealed a lot to me
amazing points! if i may offer a differing view on just one thing you said: i kind of like the idea of personifying the brain as separate from the person. maybe it's just because i have adhd but at the very least, separating my brain from myself helps me understand myself better, and helps me overcome some of the struggles i have. not sure how useful that may be in parenting, though, because kids don't really grasp the whole "abstract thought" thing.
I'm really looking forward to more like this! As a neurospicy mom of two, with a 13 year age gap, I have had a lot of time to see the effects of parenting my first. I fd up a lot. But I think I did alright too. We are working through the issues together. It's so important that we do this now before she becomes an adult, and that I learn from her as well so i can be a better parent for my second child.
Please don't ever use the term neuro-spicy, it's so infantilizing, and neutodivergent people have enough problems with people treating them as children and not taking disorders seriously.
Ongoing disagreement between my wife and me: She kept saying things like: "You don't get to do perk X if you don't ..." and I have by now given up on her giving a damn about my opinion, which is: speak straight, don't use conditionals, i.e. threats.. Result: In my family nobody except me says clearly what they want. Instead my children have learnt this threatening lingo. If you don't do X I'll threaten to do Y. Toxic. I think we should teach children to a) respect each other's needs and act accordingly and b) take responsibility for ourselves. That involves clearly phrasing what you actually want or need. "Go, brush your teeth now, please!" "Can I help you?" "No? Okay." "Stop it!" etc.
How is what you’re describing different from threatening with some form of discipline (which is acceptable in my book as long as the punishment is proportionate to the misbehaviour?). Rather state calmly the consequences for misbehaviour and follow through than ask repeatedly your kid to do something and eventually lose your shit because the kid still hasn’t done the darn thing. Now if your kid allllways does what you’re asking if you’re nice and offer to help congrats, but we have different kids. Anyway, I’m team wife.
Kids shouldn't need a reward following every task they do. Also, they should learn to follow parent directions without receiving a reward. It's your job as a kid to obey your parents. That's the power structure. You're not equals, like two same age coworkers or friends.
@languagejones people are always standing behind what they want to be true instead of what may be proven. This may affect the influencers being able to operate in fantasies and EVEN have a positive feedback loop to support delusion
Wow! I am so relieved. I was like “oh no, I tried to be a gentle parent!” My kids are older now, and I did try to be gentle, but I also tried to be clear, open and honest. I definitely could have done better, but I’m pretty sure I don’t some of this stuff!
Not done with the video yet, but YES, please give us the therapy talk video! It's honestly pissed me off the way people have weaponized the language of therapy online.
Thank you so much for making this video. I am not a parent, but in therapy now, dealing with said avoidant/anxious attachment problems, and this has helped me gain some understanding in the links between how I was raised and the bad communication habits I now have that hurt the people I love
The indirectness seems to be a way to hide one's own aggression, because direct aggression is generally thought to be bad, but there's no attempt to curb the aggression and find alternate routes to necessary things. Like brushing teeth, it's a thing that should be done, being direct plus adding a choice at least doesn't make it feel like a trap, or an implied choice binary where not doing it is really the other option. Over-using that, especially if it's just something the parent wants as opposed to something necessary for the kid, seems more like manipulation and less like guidance that a kid would benefit from. As an adult one can quickly grow tired of this sort of talking around the subject if it's used too much, especially if it's usually a lot of work for someone to catch up to what MAY be the intended meaning. Glad you're bringing this up, not happy that this is a trend...
Honestly the example you gave of toothbrushing not being optional is exactly how I was raised. If I ever asked why we did certain things my parents would always have an endless well of good explanations. The more I talk to others the more I realize how incredibly qualified my parents were as parents.
I love your channel but I especially love this message as a therapist. I definitely how therapy speak is being weaponized and harming relationships. Also I think with all this new “parenting techniques” I think it creates more anxiety in parents to do it “right” instead of just learning to be attuned to their kids needs and setting healthy boundaries.
Oh this is fantastic! We started out trying gentle parenting but noticed piece by piece what sounded way too much like my manipulative step-ma and his toxic ma. So their terrible ways once more helped us be better parents 🎉 I love it! There's still a *lot* we're figuring out, and this absolutely helped. Just glad to get some validation here, too.
You didn't mention it, but you implied the solution: context. I tend toward high context communication so I naturally do it with my kids. For my toddlers I say "help me clean up" and if they resist then I say "you need to help me clean up because it's not nice to make someone else do all of the work for you" and for my 4-7 y/o kids I just ask them to clean up and if they resist I say something like "you're at the age where you need to learn to take care of your things, so I'm asking you to clean up after yourself to learn that habit; if you don't want to learn to be responsible for your toys then you aren't responsible enough to play with them and I will take them away."
In my experience, therapy talk seems to be used to justify rather selfish and self-isolating behaviour. Setting boundaries to avoid toxicity, triggers, trauma dumping, "gaslighting"... No benefit of the doubt; no sense of obligation to others ("not my responsibility", "can't hold space" etc); no tolerance of anything that harms one's own ego or sensibilities.
"denying the antecedent" was beautifully named "modus morons" in a textbook i saw. P Q P→Q ~P→~Q T T T T T F F T F T T F F F T T therefore modus ponens does not imply modus morons.
my main reason for personifying my brain is to emphasize its fallibility or quirky needs, particularly when i'm talking to someone who seems to forget i'm not a superintelligence with perfect recall, and who isn't so great at noticing when their expectations are unrealistic. i feel like this description fits children, so maybe that's what's going on?
Thank you for making this video. While I dont consume influencer content, I have read books by a few popular parenting coaches that have a research or psychology background. My style of communication is pretty direct, and I can never get myself to use the scripts they sometimes provide become it feels very unnatural to me. I thought my direct language was too harsh and I was beating myself up about it. Im sure there are things I am doing wrong but this has helped me understand that indirectness isnt necessarily nicer or better communication when it comes to children.
Please do a therapy talk video. I hate the fact that an accusation like “You’re gaslighting me” has basically boiled down to “I think you’re lying to me right now.” But it has to be treated with more gravity because the speaker used the right words.
@carimeslockdownedtree2654It's definitely concept creep. It was historically used by some psychologists to describe a very specific type of abuse, but it wasn't a popular term until the past decade or so and certainly wasn't commonly used by therapists. Still, since it was a legitimate psychological concept before it entered into pop psychology, it could also be considered therapy speak.
A video on therapy talk would be great. If I see another person confuse disagreement with gaslighting... I'd also love a video on high context versus low context cultures and communication. I learned about it five years ago and it really helped me be successful in a job where my co-workers are from all over the globe. It also cemented for me that the concept of "politeness" is entirely relative.
5:00 Please, stop doing this. If you want the window closed, either ask/tell me pleasantly or do it yourself. Do not make me guess what your desire is. I'm a literalist. I won't guess correctly.
This is very refreshing, and as a parent of a 5 and 8 year old, I very much appreciate the academic perspective that too many people ignore. The great Marshall Mathers once said “my words are weapons” and I’ve been guilty of using these same manipulative strategies. Awareness is the first step.
“I’ll have a video in the next few weeks about the linguistics and science of how influencers manipulate your brain in an attention economy…so definitely stay tuned for that” Lmao the irony is not lost on me!! That said I will absolutely be watching that when it comes out lol
The bleedover from sociology terminology to the real world is my least favourite thing that nobody else cares about. The maffia approach works wonders with teenagers though, as long as they understand that it is the pre-being-annoyed stage of the conversation. You can humorously guide them to the required action without either directly asking them (which they hate), or letting them think it's fine to not do what you're asking.
I suspect this is an outgrowth of the way teachers used to (still do?) use watered-down neuroscience (“Your brain is always changing and developing new skills!”) to try to shift kids from “fixed mindset” to “growth mindset.” But as stated it’s bizarre.
I started to suspect use of propositional logic at 3:18, got hopeful for modus ponens and denying the antecedent with the content starting at 7:51, and felt fairly certain it was about to arrive at 8:52. I’m not sure how to include the relevant truth table in the comments, but if I figure it out I will post again.
Why talk to your child in a direct and unmistakeable way when you can have it solve discourse representation structures about Mr. Snuggles's impending doom?
this kinda reminded me for some reason of a "nonviolent communication" class I took. Where reading the book for approaches to diffusing a situation it sounded great! Approaching through validating feelings and understanding A+! Then got to examples and role plays and it almost felt like linguistic judo meant to short circuit the upset party instead of actually listening and understanding. Like yeah that's definitely still useful for say diffusing a situation that might end in violence, but for our context? Just felt scummy and manipulative. And I was totally, completely alone in my opinion. Maybe it's because i was the only neurodivergent person in the class or something, so the examples just hit different? But it just gave me the grossest vibes. Though at least there were no veiled threats like here. Yeeesh. Some of those things the parents were suggesting you say to a toddler took ME a second to parse wtf they wanted, and I'm a whole ass adult with a law degree, so one could say I specialized in deciphering absolute nonsense lol
This reminds me of how my mother - someone who presented a nice, gentle persona - made sure we knew that the cleaner was a firm believer in throwing away toys that weren’t put away.
"tommy, your mother came to us and now we have to tell you, if you don't put the toys away like she says, they might have a little "accident" ya get us tommy? good, good." on a more serious note about the last part of your videos i saw something that basically argued that seeing your parents fight and stuff isnt what messes with people and causes emotional distress later and stuff, its not seeing your parents resolve the conflict and go back to normal, it says that people who grow up and then repeat this cycle is it most likely is they learned only that part of it and never any conflict resolution or anything like that so they simply don't understand how later. TL;DR, you want to raise emotionally mature adults, then you need to do your best to be emotionally mature, and manipulation like that is the farthest thing from mature.
When I was in college, some of assignments we had in our first term were all about dealing with our own baggage. We obviously didn't call it gentle parenting, because we were studying to work in education or social work jobs, but the approaches we were taught are also what gentle parenting is supposed to be. So many of my colleagues who have an ABA approach instead of a social work approach are making so many of the mistakes you've talked about and completely ignore the fact that these are children with feelings that matter.
I found this video very interesting for several reasons. One, it took me years to realize that my half Japanese wife was not asking me if I wanted to see the latest popular movie. She was TELLING me to take her to the movie. And the clip referencing propositional logic took me back to my freshman year logic course (that was 40 years ago).
A great video to remember once I am a parent. On another note: I notice the better camera quality and like it. But you can stop the brightness going up and down by locking the exposure setting (this should be possible on both webcams and video cameras). Right now it is constantly trying to set the perfect exposure, which keeps changing because you periodically occlude and not occlude the light in the corner with your head
Ive been saying that kids are little Humans who just don't know anything yet. You have to provide them the skills, knowledges, and tools because they don't have them yet. When they do something batshit, they either don't know what will happen, and wanted to find out, or they thought something drastically different was going to happen from their actions
As it turns out, ppl who have no expertise in topics still preach about them... But you got me hooked with your video. And while this was very educational, I especially liked when you highlighted that A implies B DOES NOT mean not A implies not B. I'm a math teacher, and so many people just ignore this!😅
Would definitely appreciate any additional delve into the way social media manipulates us -- and any ways we can learn to counter these effects for our own well-being, while continuing to live in such a world. That's highly useful, understanding these dark patterns and how they manifest.
please make one on toxic therapy. Parenting advice: limit screen time after dark so their sleep cycles remain intact and do wind-down activities to get them ready for sleep. use simple logic gates such as (if) and (or) with rewards not consequences.
My niece's generation (college age) is intense on the therapy talk. She has dated a couple of people who used it to justify emotional abuse, so yes please, do a video on this! I'll share it with her.
YES please do a video on therapy talk!!! I have had several toxic relationships where I think this was part of the issue, but the use of therapy talk always made me feel like I was the bad guy or in the wrong.
Sevond this
Therapy talk is just academic snobby high brow manipulation
@@shakenbacon-vm4eu: "just" doesn't do it credit, as I've seen both it, and, for lack of a better term, "woke speak", be used to veil the iron fist of HR in particular and Capital in general. It's not only manipulation, but depending upon who says it, threats and coercion also.
@@Jesse-qy6ur💯 I hope in 2025, people are ready to hear what you said. Cuz yes, it absolutely is.
I think ppl should have to commit to a year of therapy before they're allowed to use any therapy jargon. Cause a lot of ppl are usin those words and they know just enough to get themselves in trouble lol
I'm in my 60s, I've raised kids, and helped raise grandkids, niblings, and grandniblings.
My usual go-to has been "Hey, can you give me a hand with this?" followed by explaining what I'm doing and how I'm doing it. I speak in adult tones once they can walk, I let them know that they are my successors and eventually peers.
I shy away from punishments and rewards. I compare what I am hinting at or asking to actions they've seen from family and friends.
I try to always remember that I have a lot more experience than them, and therefore they may not be able to communicate what's going on with them. When I get unexpected reactions we slow down and talk it out.
Teach the kids as you're raising them. Remember you are helping to form their foundation. You don't need to coddle, but you should definitely listen and if they are being illogical figure out why. Put yourself in their shoes.
I’ve always spoken to my kid as an adult … baby talk was weird to me. You seem like an awesome person!
Yeah ngl I think most of the harm my parents did was them just forgetting what its like to be a kid. All this therapy speak nonsense is just that but more insidious.
thanks for leaving the advice! as a hopeful future parent, it's reassuring seeing the advice from someone with a lot of experience raising kids match a lot of what I strive to provide to any and all children in my life!
There are times to coddle and times for challenges. And allways remember especcially with very young children, that what ever the challenge is, it is with a high probability the worst and hardest thing they ever experienced in their way, so it is understandable, when they react that way.
The mafia comparison is so good. The influencer was so proud of herself for the "but you don't have to say that!" point. Why is that good? If you need to act like the cops have bugged your house, maybe you shouldn't be communicating these ideas at all!
I'm a teacher and a parent. Kids need and deserve honest, direct, and specific instruction from adults. "Gentle" parenting is cowardly, ineffective, and dishonest. F that garbage.
@@glassjestercowardly is the exact word that came to me! This style is for people who are uncomfortable saying "No" or setting and enforcing clear rules and boundaries, and it does no favors to the child. My mom is a teacher and she is very clear about rules, consistent with consequences, and carries no grudges or resentment afterwards. She respects the intelligence and capacity of her students, and her students respect her and overall behave very well.
As a former marriage and family therapist, raised by a leader in marriage and family research/therapy space, MORE OF THIS. I was raised very normally without all the psychobabble, and it drives me crazy how my beloved field helps people weaponize words. Therapy should not make people turn into dicks, full stop.
💯💯
I have a feeling there's an inescapable arms race element at play, though. Manipulative people will use whatever means are at their disposal to manipulate someone. If someone well-meaningly disseminates new language that makes people feel like they're valued and their needs are being taken into account, manipulators are going to learn to use that language dishonestly. If people become better educated in spotting abusive behaviour, abusers will want to get their accusations in first so their victims have to go on the defensive. I don't really see a way around that, it's like trying to invent a gun that only the good guys can use.
@@johnnye87 True, but talking about it helps inoculate people and makes it easier to notice the manipulation.
This reminds me of a Calvin and Hobbes comic where Calvin is hammering nails into the coffee table. Mom comes in and yells, "What on earth are you doing?!" Calvin looks at the nails, then at her, and asks, "Is this a trick question?" 😂😂😂
Interesting that you mention Iran and Japan as places with high context languages. I used to have an Iranian boss and a Japanese coworker, and me, a Dutch person, had to do the cultural translation between them all the time because there were so many misunderstandings. It was quite interesting to be honest, for example the Iranian boss not replying on the weekend because she wanted to give the Japanese colleague a proper weekend, but the Japanese colleague getting offended because he interpreted it as his question being too stupid to even be answered.
If my boss didn't reply to me at the weekend I would assume it was because THEY wanted a proper weekend.
4:55 as a neurodivergent person this stuff is so difficult to follow. i can usually understand one or two levels of indirect communication (e.g. "i would like to get some food", or "im kinda hungry right now") but as soon as you abstract it further (e.g. "are you hungry?") i tend to lose the message
Same. I struggle so much with people who don't appreciate that I really don't understand this because 1) I am not looking for it and 2) assuming it in all contexts leads to more miscommunication than not so it is just easier if people are more direct.
This! My mom would say, "Would you like to set the table?" And then get mad when I would say, "No." I told her so many times that it sounded like I had a choice and to please just directly tell me what she wants me to do if there is no choice.
She never changed, but eventually I learned that if it was something I would never really want to do, I probably don't really have a choice.
I think this is why I tend to say “are you hungry? I’m hungry.” It just makes more sense. People can’t actually read my mind (no matter what my anxiety tells me), so they don’t know that I’m hungry if I don’t tell them, and asking if they are means I can then offer to get food together or to excuse myself to go get food if they’re not hungry.
Yeah, I still have no idea what she wanted in that example.
@@roadrunnercrazythis actually touches on something I kinda wish to point out.
I know us neurodivergents struggle with picking up this information, but the neurotypicals do too. They have big communication issues that, when revealed, are like the unraveling of a thread, where some of it is neat to see that one saw the other more favourably and was being a caring partner, but in other cases it exposes a underlying acceptance of social norms that are out of date for the stage in which the relationship is in.
HUGE +1 for a video on therapy talk
bc ur pfp has a circle and the comment has a +1 in it seeing this comment activated the same part of my brain that finding a ring (ie Chloranthy Ring +1) in a dark souls game does. i may have a problem LOL
@@EtherBotGamesit’s good that you’re recognising you have a problem. Let’s unpack that.
Lol officially rebranding the passive aggressive vibes in my workplace as high context indirect communication
NO! Those are legit, and different from just being passive aggressive lol
@@languagejones, OK. I’m gonna need another video. “High content indirect communication” as you describe it sounds like passive aggressive to me. Thanks for sharing all of your expertise in these videos!
Passive aggressive isn't a linguistic concept I guess. The cultural context and particular sociolects are always going to influence what's perceived as passive aggressive (which is real but I think can't be defined by an objective standard)... If I put "Regards" at the end of an email rather than "Kind regards" that's passive aggressive in my communications. To some people it probably isn't...
So low context, direct communication would be: " Unkind regards"?
@@languagejones Absolutely, got that from the video. But also found the term amusing and out of context it totally sounds like corporate speak 🤣
As with literally everything, balance is the answer. No parent parents perfectly, and no child is perfect. At any rate, one of my favorite memories is me arguing with my four year old daughter that she needed a bath, and saying, "This is not up for debate," which is not a great way to talk to a kid, but I'm human. Anyhow, my daughter very forcefully argued, "It IS debate!" which...is a great point.
At any rate, I tried to raise my daughter by treating her, if not as an adult, then as a human with her own wants and needs and desires, and she's grown up to be an employed college graduate with a committed partner who she likes, and she seems generally happy. As those were my primary goals as a parent (the partner part was optional, but if she wanted one, I wanted her to have one), I feel like her mom and I did okay.
Ironically, I didn't mention it in the video, but I'm a huge advocate for treating children like people. It's just not fair to expect them to have cognitive skills they haven't developed yet.
@@languagejones Exactly. And as when my daughter asserted that it was a debatable issue, it's important while parenting to occasionally recognize, "Oh, hey, I'm doing that wrong." At the time, I laughed, and said okay, and let her explain why she didn't want a bath, which was not a great argument, and ultimately, one she lost -- but she at least felt like I'd listened to her, I think, which goes a long way.
Basically, you respected your child as a child and as a person. That goes a long way to help smooth out parental imperfections. The type of language is just the opposite, treating the child as someone to be manipulated through veiled threats.
4 is such an interesting developmental stage. I told my daughter at age 4 that life isn't fair and she got SO MAD. Literally could not accept the unfairness of life. It was kind of sad. Like, I feel you girl, it sucks but it's still true :/
@@languagejones I think academics understand this better than most.
A friend of mine just *moved out of his house*, is crashing on a couch and is technically homeless because when confronted about bills, his room mate would respond with therapy talk such as "I'm drawing a boundary, I will not engage with you", and when he had very rational reactions be dodged on bills would be accused of being "Dysregulated". Apparently distance and ghosting aren't just ways of dealing with trolls, they're a way of dealing with creditors.
For the love of god, please PLEASE do a video on therapy talk.
That is amazing
kind of hilarious to get a bill and just respond with "i'm drawing a boundary"
"and I am moving that boundary to outside the house, along with all your stuff"
There was a gentle parenting video where they kept asking the kid if he wanted to do the task they wanted him to do and he kept saying "no" so they kept rephrasing the question over and over until he gave in. People in the comments were thoroughly confused, this isn't communication? Doesn't this just teach him that his 'no' is meaningless? Yeah, probably. I really don't think social media gentle parenting is at all the same thing as the original theory itself.
Ideally it's more like authoritative, but some people are so averse to potentially being authoritarian that they back into permissive. Or play weird mind games I guess. It's really frustrating because I really like a lot of the principles of gentle parenting, but what's showcased on social media is giving it a really bad rap and (the immortal classic) misinformation for money.
As someone who likes the idea of gentle parenting: it’s mostly about helping the parents control their emotions.
I disagree, it's about having realistic expectations of your child's behaviour and then responding appropriately. I hate sounding cold, but as someone in my mid30s, i judge the adult tantrums mislabeled as "emotions" very harshly. We have normalised adults having violent rage fits way too much as well as passive aggressive stonewalling. It shouldn't be considered normal for an adult to "take revenge" on their baby for popping in a diaper, or a toddler wanting a toy, or a 9yo forgetting their homework, or a teen wanting to go party with friend. It's not about "helping parents control their emotions" - if they were that volatile they'd smash their fridge for not boiling water. It's about NOT considering and treating kids as adults making choices at their expense (I didn't come up with the last one, but it just rang so true).
@@anne-vc7bgI only half agree with you. I agree that parents should have realistic expectations of children's behaviours.
However, I don't agree that just because a parent loses their temper it means they are emotionally volatile. I'm not a parent, but through volunteering with kids, I do think kids can sometimes be genuinely frustrating. They are capable of violating other people's boundaries e.g. teasing, hitting other children without regard for the word "stop", and also they are capable of throwing tantrums to get their way. I've seen some kids roll around on the floor screaming and crying because they don't want to leave. Of course, verbal and physical abuse from an adult in response is NEVER okay and should NEVER be normalized, and I say that as someone who experienced both a lot as a kid and is suffering many long term mental health issues now as an adult, but responding in a calm manner without snapping or raising your voice in those extremely frustrating situations is a challenging skill that takes practice. (Those behaviours are parents losing their temper, but it's not the same as an adult tantrum, taking revenge, or abuse.)
The worst part is, sometimes when the parent doesn't raise their voice at all the kid takes it as a sign to ignore them, so it's a huge challenge for the parents to communicate what they want in a way that is both respectful to their kid and will be respected by the kid.
@amysteriouspersonintophat1458 kids aren't toys made to be enjoyed - they're dependents meant to be cared for. They're always frustrating, so is being stuck in traffic or doing the dishes or dusting. It's not about kids not being annoying or parents not being annoyed - having realistic expectations means that you have a plan B in your sleeve.
To clarify: you have a RE that cars drive on road, therefore you look both ways before crossing it - yeah? You have RE that the highway is going to be packed during rush hour, therefore you plan accordingly and don't have a meltdown when you're stuck in traffic - yeah? Your local grocery store has predetermined working hours: you check it before heading there at 3AM - yeah?
Who is surprised that kids can violate personal boundaries - it is not unexpected that a toddler demands to follow you to the toilet or a 10yo wants to see what you have in hand or a teen rolls their eyes and calls you stupid for not understanding how important a 50$ pencil with a celebrity's name on it is - it's not a secret, or a surprise, or something the person who physically made the kid didn't experience.
... You don't get upset with your dog 💩 on the carpet if you didn't walk it for 12h or a cat tracking litter after using the litter box, there's nothing surprising about a toddler having a meltdown in a grocery store: you know it may happen as soon as you take your toddler grocery shopping with you - you go in with a plan to deal with it, or you don't bring them with.
It's also not about responding in a calm manner - they're not voice activated AI: you can AND SHOULD yell at your kid DON'T TOUCH THAT if their reaching for a hot stovetop.
Your (as a parent) emotional responses are what the kid uses to understand the world: staying up 5min after bedtime should not get the same response as trying to stick scissors into wall sockets, and stuttering through reading "peanut butter" when they're learning to read is something you plan for (like traffic during rush hour) and thus no matter how annoying as it is, you have the duty to either power through it or maneuver around it when you can't.
99%-85% of things kids do is what we adults know how to handle in a good enough way, making it a choice and not "something that happens". A toddler can tell if you're 🤢🤮💩 with severe food poisoning (though they don't know what to do or how to help) - they can also tell when you're just being an AH.
It's not a challenge to communicate with a kid, it's a challenge to communicate as an adult with someone who can't read your mind.
We're adults, if we say road safety, we automatically go through a list we learnt, from weather conditions when driving to buying a LED collar for a dog to enhance their visibility at night - we interrogate kids before a crosswalk if they see any cars without explaining why that's a thing and kids are so easy to communicate that they do answer if they see any cars: from the parked ones behind them, to the ones driving towards them, to the ones on a t-shirt. It's not a huge challenge to communicate for the parents: it's just about giving coherent information instead of barking keywords. Even just "wait until I say go, wait, go" is good enough to direct 75% of toddlers to cross the road by themselves. Because kids are easy to communicate with, they just can't read minds, while you as a grown az adult kinda can: 🤔 my toddler is playing and having fun, what would they feel if I'd tell them we're going home ASAP 🤪 ... 🤦 Seriously? I totally get meltdowns from not wanting to leave a fun time are annoying, but FFS let's not pretend the kid is being weird for not wanting to leave - that's why you give them warnings like "5min" or explain why there's a rush, or try to bribe with a candy, or apologise and physically carry them to the car then try to make it up to them later. There's absolutely nothing reasonable or decent in playing dominance stonewalling against a toddler who's in such distress that they scream, cry and flop like a fish on the floor in public. I'm gonna be honest - kids have tantrums and they're normal, but at some point it turns into the parents being so 💩 that the kid feels they can't do anything feasible enough for survival except a meltdown. Every living being tries to achieve positive outcomes with their actions, kids know not how to, adult know how not to.
It reminded me of when I took a job at an insurance company cca15 years ago and they taught us tricks like, "I'd like to make an appointment with you, would it be more convenient for you on Tuesday or Thursday?" When I said I was not good at manipulating people, they said, "We don't MANIPULATE, we motivate the client to make a positive decision!" I didn't last long.
That's the weaselest phrase I've ever heard 😂
We NEED a linguistic breakdown of what therapy talk is, why is it effective, and how is it being weaponized.
@@Robespierre-lI When a person is legitimately in therapy, there is a high likelihood that they will catch on to other people using that kind of language. I'm living it firsthand.
I love your "Are you hungry?" example. A long time ago and only a few years after my wife and I married, we were back in her hometown visiting with her parents. I was driving us in town, and my mother-in-law said, "Oh look, there's a Burger King."
I replied, "Oh, and there's a bank" and kept driving.
It wasn't until later that my wife told me what I missed. We still laugh about it, as does my mother-in-law, who has learned to ask me directly for something she wants since high context cues weren't anything I grew up with.
Wait, you genuinely thought she was pointing out a Burger King, like some sort of badly undertrained tour-guide? “On your right, you’ll see the Burger King, established in 1977. Despite the name, it has no monarchal authority, but it is known as the best place in a two-block radius to purchase a mid-quality, low-priced meal.”
I'm pretty low-context, and grew up in a low-context setting, but even I understand "Ooh! Burger king!" as a suggestion that we should eat there.
I've pretty much trained my friends to be totally unsubtle at this point with my complete inability to notice any subtext whatsoever. I wanna say I feel bad people have to act differntly to me but nah, it's been great to actually be properly communicating with my friends instead of all of us ending up frustrated playing the "am I gonna finally get it?" game.
Also, specifically with the car thing, I do just randomly point out things I see so they all now know that "ooh, coffee shop!" does NOT mean I wanna go there...
It's making me realise why I sometimes end up fighting with friends and partners about where we eat... Because they'll take my "oh look, an X!" as a sign of my true preference, instead of the burst of recognition that it actually is 😅
I don’t believe you. This is how my father talks when he is fed up with people being indirect. You know what she meant and this was your way of saying “I don’t take hints, talk directly to me if you want something”.
Not a parent, but I am an English teacher...and I wish I had as informed an instructor regarding how to approach middle-school children in terms of effective use of language. Your content consistently gets me to think and rethink about how I do things in the classroom. Sometimes I'm happy; sometimes I see places where I really need to adjust my approaches. Thanks!
Assertiveness training would be helpful for American women who want to be teachers or sub teachers.
WHY did you become a tracher?
There are so many jobs where you don't have to deal with children and their parents for minimum wage.
@@ElegantHamster-d7s As long as we combine it with training for the men to stop viewing assertive women as all sorts of negative things they don't associate with other men, this could be super helpful in general.
I'm not saying you should pick up your toys but kids that don't pick up their toys sometimes end up with broken fingers. (7:51)
It'd be hard to play with Mr. Snuggles if you couldn't pick him up. You feel me?
Would REALLY love a video on therapy talk and concept creep! My brother is a therapist and we've talked a lot about that. Very interesting stuff.
You've got it. I'll add it to my list!
Ohhh concept creep would be such an interesting video! That phenomenon is. So strange to me.
I think Therapy Talk is such a big topic you could do a series on it. Its use can be really positive too in some cases. Therapy basically saved my parents marriage, I think because they learned how to talk about their feelings and wishes less confrontationally. Just constructing sentences with "I feel like X is really important to me right now and I would like you to make more effort to do X", as opposed to "You never do X! You don't give a shit about me!"... To me that's therapy talk. Maybe therapy neologisms is a subset that's different and more unhelpful though?
I've always talked to my son like he was my equal. Of course I haven't been perfect, but I make it a point to apologize when I mess up and to be understanding when his own mistakes happen. I try to frame it as we're learning together, because I sure as hell don't have all the answers.
Also count this as my vote for a therapy talk video. That shit has been driving me nuts for years.
I really enjoy your content. ❤
This! I'm a grandparent and I was there when this started to happen. I wasn't only a parent but involved in La Leche League and founded a large unschooling group- both filled with the type of people who would be early adopters of things like this. I actually closed down my unschooling support group because new parents coming in were talking to the it children this way and I found it disturbing and highly disrespectful to the children.
And the children were miserable. I mean really unhappy along with either being withdrawn or aggressive. They would ignore when asked to do anything like get in the car in the car to go home. Then when they had to do it (because everyone has to go home) they would throw fits. The parents would back off and try to get them in the car "gently" using those gentle treats. I'm a behaviorist- okay, just a canine behaviorist but this is so fundamental to behavior that it was obvious. The kids had no idea what the parents were trying to do but they did know that a fit could get the parent to back off and they'd get what they wanted.
Loved this, and found the mafia bit hilarious. I also endorse the idea of a video about therapy talk and perhaps more generally about what happens when technical language goes mainstream and what is lost along the way. “Emotional labour” is a great example to me: what was intended to identify jobs in the economy which involve hiding one’s feelings or pretending they are something else (this is commonly but not exclusively found in hospitality and retail) now kinda means feeling alienated towards social obligations or annoyed by interpersonal tasks.
The examples from influencer parents remind me of Ruby Franke (the Mormon parenting influencer who ended up being arrested for horrifying child abuse). In addition to constant punishments, she used to use a lot of passive aggressive language and veiled threats with her children. She described it as if she were building perfect parental authority by ostensibly never losing her cool or raising her voice... when clearly she was just confusing and scaring her kids a lot and teaching them to mistrust anything she said and be ready to be hurt at any time. I'm not a parent nor do I want to be one, so I try to stay out of parenting discourse, but what you correctly describe as mafia threats are just very obvious red flags even to me. These parents are treating their children like enemies who have to be broken and brainwashed so that they obey.
I’m not a parent, but I AM a huge language nerd & this video was still super interesting! And I’d love a video about the misuse of therapy speak! I dated a guy in the late 2000s who was an early adopter of it…and it drove me crazy then, but it drives me even crazier now, because he was in school to become a psychologist himself & at least he had a decent grasp of the terms he was using, and used them correctly.
Great, now I'm going to be hitting refresh continually until you release the next video. Your content just keeps getting better and better.
Thank you so much! I’ve got some really fun ones lined up for the next few weeks. I usually aim for Wednesday and make Friday at the latest, so you can take a few days off from hitting refresh…but I do periodically do livestreams at odd hours
I think, like other psychological terms, the meaning of “gentle parenting” has been warped by frequent misuse on the internet. People have decided that it means whatever they want it to mean (like with “narcissism,” “gaslighting,” etc.). But I believe the intended use actually equates with “authoritative parenting,” like the examples of healthy parenting you gave. Thank you for this video 😊
Thank you!
Honestly I thought gentle parenting had more to do with avoiding corporal punishment and using other discipline techniques. My parents didn't use corporal punishment but I wouldn't say it was particularly gentle haha. My dad is so long winded one time my dad gave me a lecture and by the time he finished I was 25 😭
@@t_ylr basically yeah. gentle parenting was SUPPOSED to be an alternative name for authoritative parenting (nurturing and supportive but firm boundaries and high expectations and trying to resolve problems through communication and mutual respect) because "authoritative" sounds a lot like "authoritarian" and initially influencers were worried people would get those two mixed up. now it's basically any parenting style that can be disguised in therapy talk. you aren't supposed to threaten your kids at all in gentle parenting but i guess people absorbed the style of speaking before any of the principles.
@@ishathakorI think a lot of people (me included) are uncomfortable setting and enforcing boundaries and rules. The shortcut of language manipulation is really tempting, but it's ultimately counterproductive and makes things worse. We need to face our discomfort and communicate clearly so that the kids learn to do that for themselves. Clarity and consistency are so important when interacting with children!
Language changes. Grow up and accept it
Plus only low and slow people use words without knowing the meaning. J6st stay away from l8w people, in real l7fe and on Social Media.
I had never thought about it in those terms but that logical analysis of "good kids get to keep their toys" brought back some memories of being an undiagnosed autistic kid and not understanding why adults were allowed to change the rules without saying.
"The kids that have cleaned their rooms get to have cookies!"
-When I was really young I just cried because I didn't get any cookies without them telling that I wouldn't get them.
--When I got older, sort of age 8-10, I would become even more frustrated because it just seemed like word tricks, and I called it "opposite language" because I had to add a "not" when trying to figure out what happened if I didn't comply with the positive scenario they described. In reality, it'd probably be better described by calling it "negative scenario painting" or something like that.
If only I had the language of logic at that time (I still don't in English because you use all sorts of Latin mumbo-jumbo, modus ponens, etc.)
I had a bit of logic (as a part of non-calculus math, not linguistics or philosophy) at the university, not in English. This is a terminology used there, it's not specific for English. I believe it's better to learn how these theorems are proven and what they actually are than their names. To clarify, I have neither experience nor expertise to tell you if it will help you. I liked it on it's own (don't remember much now though), but I don't think I ever really used it for anything
That’s not autism. That’s just “not being particularly bright”.
@@MassimoAngotzi If you look into what autism actually is, it's basically just "not being particularly bright" when it comes to social skills and non-literal communication (among other things), so I guess you are right on that front.
But I'm not sure you're getting the underlying logical problem with those statements: My parents were telling me stuff that had no consequence if you took the words literally. They weren't saying anything about the kids that haven't cleaned their rooms. You have to know that it's an exclusive statement, like when you say "I have 10 fingers" you mean that you only have ten fingers, but logically speaking that doesn't have to be the case: Like when someone asks you if you have 5 dollars, you don't say "No, I have 500.000" because if you have 500.000 you also have 5. Likewise, if you have 10 fingers, you also have 5.
Knowing what people mean in those situations is a combination of understanding context clues; you usually don't need to divide the number of fingers you have, while money is maybe the one thing we apply the most arithmetic to, and body language and tone of voice clues.
You usually get better at context clues as you get older, and I have a pretty good ear for tone of voice these days (but it's not as useful outside of my particular dialect of my particular language), but I still misread or simply don't understand body language all the time.
@@MassimoAngotzi it actually might be and what you're doing here so inconsiderately is just doing an ableism by dismissing it without considering why they came to the conclusion.
It's true, I wouldn't necessarily expect non-autistic children to get these things either, but that's usually not because they're not bright, it's because they lack the depth of knowledge to actually deal with these kinds of statements.
I had no idea when I opened this one up that my favorite grammar nerd was going to give me a push to finally find a therapist because of the way I was damaged by my parent’s child-raising style.
Oh wow that’s deep. For what it’s worth, I refused sponsorship from better help because of their shady practices, so make sure you find someone you trust. And full disclosure, I’m *not* in therapy (yet!)
@@languagejonesfor what it’s worth, thanks for not taking that sponsorship.
It’s nice to see someone who cares about their audience more than their wallet. ❤
@@languagejones another thanks for not getting that sponsor. I'm tired of unsubbing from language channels who promote those ghouls
@@qwinlynmy guess is that at least initially, it was less creators not valuing the wellbeing of their watchers and more them failing to do rigorous research on the potential sponsor and not thinking about the consequences.
Here's your truth table (columns 3 and 5 the same affirming that the contrapositive is equivalent, 3 and 4 differing show the fallacy of denying the antecedent):
p | q | p -> q | ~p -> ~q | ~q -> ~p
------------------------------------------------------
T | T | T | T | T
T | F | F | T | F
F | T | T | F | T
F | F | T | T | T
WAY TO DELIVER!!!!
i just finished discrete math and was about to do this
@@angelo1716discrete maths ftw
Coming from a computer science background this table is so confusing to me bc it kinda "sounds" like equivalenting correlation with causation (ie p and q both being true doesn't mean p leads to q). I understand that's not what it actually means but I just can't understand who thought this was a good way to represent what they wanted to represent
All I can understand is the true and false part…
Another + 1 for a video on therapy talk! Also - regarding the putting the toys away phrasing - it reminds me of some in-service training we had years ago in our high school (I was a high school languages teacher for many years) We were told to rephrase our requests always in the positive. So we had to remind pupils in the corridors "Walk, thankyou!" rather than telling them to stop running.... at the end of class we had to say "When you've finished the page, then you can to out to breaktime". And so on and so on..
I would LOVE a video on how therapy talk has been absorbed into broader culture and weaponized.
Can you pass the bread? Some adults would say that using the conditional is more polite: Could you pass the bread? Because the if clause is implied: if it's not too much trouble. But kids wouldn't see a distinction. Also my dad would often say at dinner: "I don't seem to have a napkin." As kids we didn't know what he meant. Years later, we realized this meant: I don't have a napkin. Who the hell set the table.
My mum used to say things like "would you like to clean the kitchen while I'm out?" and while I'm sure the couple of times I replied "...not really, no" were deliberate sass, I certainly interpreted it as a sort of gentle suggestion of something I might do if I was bored, rather than an actual request.
@johnnye87 lol
I recognized quickly that a small kid won’t really understand that phrase so I tell her all the time that when I say “can you xxx” or “could you please xxx” I mean go do the thing now. It’s not a request, it’s a command.
I feel like the could/can are just two different questions. Not necessarily a polite thing, but a pay attention to the words you use, thing.
@@fervensmortis Well 'could' is the past tense of can. Could is also a modal verb. The conditional implies the 'if' clause. As in 'if it's no too much trouble.' They're two different words with different meanings. But young kids might not make a distinction.
I would love you to do a video on 'gay voice'. I'm a gay man with a combination gay/Australian accent. I know there's a documentary on this but I'd be fascinated to hear your take. Thanks!
Gay voice is a super interesting topic to me as a trans man. I've had people get mad at me over "acting so flamboyant" because my voice is an octave and a half lower than it used to be but I struggle not to use the same tones and inflections as I was socialized to use growing up.
definitely interested in the ways therapy talk is often misused, but strongly encourage some focus on how it can be used healthily and constructively. It's pretty much inevitable that the video will end up mischaracterized as "therapy talk is always bad" but i think there's some value in at least reducing that misreading.
Agreed, therapy speak is problematic because it's being used incorrectly. It doesn't represent actual therapy, and the root concepts and terminology can be still be genuinely helpful to understand and utilize. Something like how to set and maintain healthy boundaries is absolutely worth knowing, and it's super frustrating how people who fundamentally misunderstand how boundaries work are using them to try to control others or avoid responsibility.
When I was growing up in a culture pretty heavy with indirect high context communication, it (or at least how my mother used it) seemed really toxic. Felt dehumanizing even in some situations.
In the way it was just thrown out there into the universe as an off-hand innocent remark while actually being a strict command. When just directly and calmly asking would accomplish the same goal more effectively, because at some point I just got so tired of how that communication felt that I started rebelling against it.
Maybe it was about who I am, maybe about how she used it, but safe to say I'm not putting my children through that.
5:08 It could mean a number of things. Another possible one could be you're on a road trip and you haven't eaten anything for 5 hours and she is trying to gently tell you to eat something. Or she could literally just be asking. Or maybe she is just bored and looking for a topic of conversation. From that simple phrase, it is impossible to really know.
Was not expecting statement logic and my friends modus ponens and denying the antecedent to make an appearance this episode but I was pleasantly surprised!
8 minutes in and I continue to be glad that my Tiktok exposure as well as my social media parenting exposure is limited. I had no idea that is is what is being called "gentle parenting" in 2024. 100% they missed the entire point.
I usually call my parenting principles gentle/respectful parenting but that's just because I don't hit my kids and I try my best not to yell or lose my temper and if I do, I apologize for it. I treat my kids like people and if they're not doing what I want them to do, it's usually because of something that they can't communicate effectively yet - so I try to give them the language for it and have appropriate expectations. When did gentle parenting turn into this nonsense? Yuck!
I did expect formal logic to make an appearance, but not this video specifically. My intro to linguistics prof told us a couple times throughout the semester that there were a lot of places where computer science and linguistics kind of meet. I really like this middle ground
Yes please! More videos about language and raising children. As an education assistant, my colleagues and I constantly lament on the condition of parenting and how it affects the children we work with. While some bad parenting techniques are constantly, I think parental influencers are at the heart of the questions we educators ask when we complain about what’s going on with parents and kids these days.
Great video again Mr. Jones. Without outside influence from a UA-cam parenting master I found I picked up some of these questionable techniques, mosty due to the fact I was exposed to them when I was a wee lad. But I remember my aunty telling me one time, she said "Chris, these things your dealing with will come out of you one day in action, it's important you recognize when they do so you can stop it." not word for word though the general idea was there. I feel sorry for my eldest because I spent the first few years of raising him doing on him what was done to me, and as an adult I do experience some of the lovely side effects you mentioned too. Anyway I'd just like to mention I didn't get your latin reference there in the middle but I appreciate you pointing out there are still things in this world that I don't know, which is most things anyway.
All the best to you and anyway else who is reading this, or isn't.
Cheers,
Chris
I'm pretty sure the best way to get your kid to start acting more mature and like an adult... is to treat them like an adult, including communication wise, where those veiled threats would NOT be the way to talk to another adult.
I really want to hear you more about linguistic on kids, like kids not really understanding negation!
Wow, this video is fantastic. Im always not following what people say, and have always said I prefer a "direct style of communication", I never knew my weakness was context and assumptions people make pn my knowledge and what they share with me. This video has revealed a lot to me
amazing points!
if i may offer a differing view on just one thing you said: i kind of like the idea of personifying the brain as separate from the person.
maybe it's just because i have adhd but at the very least, separating my brain from myself helps me understand myself better, and helps me overcome some of the struggles i have.
not sure how useful that may be in parenting, though, because kids don't really grasp the whole "abstract thought" thing.
I'm really looking forward to more like this! As a neurospicy mom of two, with a 13 year age gap, I have had a lot of time to see the effects of parenting my first. I fd up a lot. But I think I did alright too. We are working through the issues together. It's so important that we do this now before she becomes an adult, and that I learn from her as well so i can be a better parent for my second child.
Good for you for working with your daughter! It's so important to recognize where we mess up and put in effort to do better 😊
Please don't ever use the term neuro-spicy, it's so infantilizing, and neutodivergent people have enough problems with people treating them as children and not taking disorders seriously.
Ongoing disagreement between my wife and me: She kept saying things like: "You don't get to do perk X if you don't ..." and I have by now given up on her giving a damn about my opinion, which is: speak straight, don't use conditionals, i.e. threats.. Result: In my family nobody except me says clearly what they want. Instead my children have learnt this threatening lingo. If you don't do X I'll threaten to do Y. Toxic. I think we should teach children to a) respect each other's needs and act accordingly and b) take responsibility for ourselves. That involves clearly phrasing what you actually want or need. "Go, brush your teeth now, please!" "Can I help you?" "No? Okay." "Stop it!" etc.
How is what you’re describing different from threatening with some form of discipline (which is acceptable in my book as long as the punishment is proportionate to the misbehaviour?). Rather state calmly the consequences for misbehaviour and follow through than ask repeatedly your kid to do something and eventually lose your shit because the kid still hasn’t done the darn thing. Now if your kid allllways does what you’re asking if you’re nice and offer to help congrats, but we have different kids.
Anyway, I’m team wife.
Kids shouldn't need a reward following every task they do. Also, they should learn to follow parent directions without receiving a reward.
It's your job as a kid to obey your parents. That's the power structure. You're not equals, like two same age coworkers or friends.
missed opportunity to start the video "I'm a parent, because I say so without context..." or smn like that
Always very entertaining and informative
Thanks for not using your powers for evil
Thank you! I’m just trying to figure out how these people are getting so much influence with their bad advice lol
@languagejones people are always standing behind what they want to be true instead of what may be proven. This may affect the influencers being able to operate in fantasies and EVEN have a positive feedback loop to support delusion
12:59
> says he’s going to explain how influencers manipulate us in order to get our attention
> says “so definitely stay tuned for that” right after
That's not manipulative. There's no trickery or veiled threats.
10:34 god i burst out laughing at this bit, this was so well done
Wow! I am so relieved. I was like “oh no, I tried to be a gentle parent!” My kids are older now, and I did try to be gentle, but I also tried to be clear, open and honest. I definitely could have done better, but I’m pretty sure I don’t some of this stuff!
Not done with the video yet, but YES, please give us the therapy talk video! It's honestly pissed me off the way people have weaponized the language of therapy online.
Thank you so much for making this video. I am not a parent, but in therapy now, dealing with said avoidant/anxious attachment problems, and this has helped me gain some understanding in the links between how I was raised and the bad communication habits I now have that hurt the people I love
I'm an elementary school teacher, and this has been very informative for me. Thanks!
Thank you for refusing the BetterHelp sponsorship (and for the video, which was interesting).
Thank you! I try to avoid questionable partnerships, and it seems like this is one domain where they could actually cause harm
The indirectness seems to be a way to hide one's own aggression, because direct aggression is generally thought to be bad, but there's no attempt to curb the aggression and find alternate routes to necessary things. Like brushing teeth, it's a thing that should be done, being direct plus adding a choice at least doesn't make it feel like a trap, or an implied choice binary where not doing it is really the other option. Over-using that, especially if it's just something the parent wants as opposed to something necessary for the kid, seems more like manipulation and less like guidance that a kid would benefit from. As an adult one can quickly grow tired of this sort of talking around the subject if it's used too much, especially if it's usually a lot of work for someone to catch up to what MAY be the intended meaning. Glad you're bringing this up, not happy that this is a trend...
Honestly the example you gave of toothbrushing not being optional is exactly how I was raised. If I ever asked why we did certain things my parents would always have an endless well of good explanations. The more I talk to others the more I realize how incredibly qualified my parents were as parents.
Very excited for this video and would definitely love one on therapy talk too
PLEASE, the therapy talk video would be much appreciated
I love your channel but I especially love this message as a therapist. I definitely how therapy speak is being weaponized and harming relationships. Also I think with all this new “parenting techniques” I think it creates more anxiety in parents to do it “right” instead of just learning to be attuned to their kids needs and setting healthy boundaries.
As a parent I appreciate you going over this topic. Thank you.
Oh this is fantastic! We started out trying gentle parenting but noticed piece by piece what sounded way too much like my manipulative step-ma and his toxic ma. So their terrible ways once more helped us be better parents 🎉 I love it!
There's still a *lot* we're figuring out, and this absolutely helped. Just glad to get some validation here, too.
The cut aways were GOLD!
The mafia bit was hilarious! That's a great explanation.
You didn't mention it, but you implied the solution: context. I tend toward high context communication so I naturally do it with my kids. For my toddlers I say "help me clean up" and if they resist then I say "you need to help me clean up because it's not nice to make someone else do all of the work for you" and for my 4-7 y/o kids I just ask them to clean up and if they resist I say something like "you're at the age where you need to learn to take care of your things, so I'm asking you to clean up after yourself to learn that habit; if you don't want to learn to be responsible for your toys then you aren't responsible enough to play with them and I will take them away."
In my experience, therapy talk seems to be used to justify rather selfish and self-isolating behaviour. Setting boundaries to avoid toxicity, triggers, trauma dumping, "gaslighting"... No benefit of the doubt; no sense of obligation to others ("not my responsibility", "can't hold space" etc); no tolerance of anything that harms one's own ego or sensibilities.
"denying the antecedent" was beautifully named "modus morons" in a textbook i saw.
P Q P→Q ~P→~Q
T T T T
T F F T
F T T F
F F T T
therefore modus ponens does not imply modus morons.
What… did I just read…
my main reason for personifying my brain is to emphasize its fallibility or quirky needs, particularly when i'm talking to someone who seems to forget i'm not a superintelligence with perfect recall, and who isn't so great at noticing when their expectations are unrealistic. i feel like this description fits children, so maybe that's what's going on?
Thank you for making this video. While I dont consume influencer content, I have read books by a few popular parenting coaches that have a research or psychology background. My style of communication is pretty direct, and I can never get myself to use the scripts they sometimes provide become it feels very unnatural to me. I thought my direct language was too harsh and I was beating myself up about it. Im sure there are things I am doing wrong but this has helped me understand that indirectness isnt necessarily nicer or better communication when it comes to children.
Excellent video, I definitely would like a video on therapy talk as well.
Leaving another comment here to encourage you to do a vid on therapy talk! Thanks for the great content as always
Please do a therapy talk video. I hate the fact that an accusation like “You’re gaslighting me” has basically boiled down to “I think you’re lying to me right now.” But it has to be treated with more gravity because the speaker used the right words.
Wouldn't that be concept creep instead? Kinda confused on the difference now.
@carimeslockdownedtree2654It's definitely concept creep. It was historically used by some psychologists to describe a very specific type of abuse, but it wasn't a popular term until the past decade or so and certainly wasn't commonly used by therapists. Still, since it was a legitimate psychological concept before it entered into pop psychology, it could also be considered therapy speak.
Great video, as usual, Dr. Jones. Thanks 🙏🏽
A video on therapy talk would be great. If I see another person confuse disagreement with gaslighting...
I'd also love a video on high context versus low context cultures and communication. I learned about it five years ago and it really helped me be successful in a job where my co-workers are from all over the globe. It also cemented for me that the concept of "politeness" is entirely relative.
5:00 Please, stop doing this.
If you want the window closed, either ask/tell me pleasantly or do it yourself. Do not make me guess what your desire is. I'm a literalist. I won't guess correctly.
This is very refreshing, and as a parent of a 5 and 8 year old, I very much appreciate the academic perspective that too many people ignore.
The great Marshall Mathers once said “my words are weapons” and I’ve been guilty of using these same manipulative strategies. Awareness is the first step.
“I’ll have a video in the next few weeks about the linguistics and science of how influencers manipulate your brain in an attention economy…so definitely stay tuned for that”
Lmao the irony is not lost on me!! That said I will absolutely be watching that when it comes out lol
That's not manipulative. He has no ulterior motive, and he is not using trickery.
The bleedover from sociology terminology to the real world is my least favourite thing that nobody else cares about. The maffia approach works wonders with teenagers though, as long as they understand that it is the pre-being-annoyed stage of the conversation. You can humorously guide them to the required action without either directly asking them (which they hate), or letting them think it's fine to not do what you're asking.
I care about that bleedover so much. There are at least two of us!
"My brain can't remember" sounds like "my stomach is hungry" to me. I find it weird when people refer to their brain instead of their being in general
I suspect this is an outgrowth of the way teachers used to (still do?) use watered-down neuroscience (“Your brain is always changing and developing new skills!”) to try to shift kids from “fixed mindset” to “growth mindset.” But as stated it’s bizarre.
People actually WATCH those psychotic influencers?! * shiver *
Worse... people actually follow their "advise"
Thank god i don't have kids. Another great video from Dr. Jones. Keep up the good work.
I started to suspect use of propositional logic at 3:18, got hopeful for modus ponens and denying the antecedent with the content starting at 7:51, and felt fairly certain it was about to arrive at 8:52. I’m not sure how to include the relevant truth table in the comments, but if I figure it out I will post again.
Why talk to your child in a direct and unmistakeable way when you can have it solve discourse representation structures about Mr. Snuggles's impending doom?
this kinda reminded me for some reason of a "nonviolent communication" class I took. Where reading the book for approaches to diffusing a situation it sounded great! Approaching through validating feelings and understanding A+! Then got to examples and role plays and it almost felt like linguistic judo meant to short circuit the upset party instead of actually listening and understanding. Like yeah that's definitely still useful for say diffusing a situation that might end in violence, but for our context? Just felt scummy and manipulative. And I was totally, completely alone in my opinion. Maybe it's because i was the only neurodivergent person in the class or something, so the examples just hit different? But it just gave me the grossest vibes. Though at least there were no veiled threats like here. Yeeesh. Some of those things the parents were suggesting you say to a toddler took ME a second to parse wtf they wanted, and I'm a whole ass adult with a law degree, so one could say I specialized in deciphering absolute nonsense lol
I was not expecting clips of my favorite so-accurate-it's-barely-a-parody blaxploitation film in this video.
This reminds me of how my mother - someone who presented a nice, gentle persona - made sure we knew that the cleaner was a firm believer in throwing away toys that weren’t put away.
Definitely want that video on therapy talk as I have experienced some of its toxic use in the wider world
"tommy, your mother came to us and now we have to tell you, if you don't put the toys away like she says, they might have a little "accident" ya get us tommy? good, good."
on a more serious note about the last part of your videos i saw something that basically argued that seeing your parents fight and stuff isnt what messes with people and causes emotional distress later and stuff, its not seeing your parents resolve the conflict and go back to normal, it says that people who grow up and then repeat this cycle is it most likely is they learned only that part of it and never any conflict resolution or anything like that so they simply don't understand how later.
TL;DR, you want to raise emotionally mature adults, then you need to do your best to be emotionally mature, and manipulation like that is the farthest thing from mature.
When I was in college, some of assignments we had in our first term were all about dealing with our own baggage. We obviously didn't call it gentle parenting, because we were studying to work in education or social work jobs, but the approaches we were taught are also what gentle parenting is supposed to be. So many of my colleagues who have an ABA approach instead of a social work approach are making so many of the mistakes you've talked about and completely ignore the fact that these are children with feelings that matter.
Oh wow, YES. PLEASE do a video about therapy talk and it's transformation in outside-therapy culture. This is important and fascinating and useful.
I found this video very interesting for several reasons. One, it took me years to realize that my half Japanese wife was not asking me if I wanted to see the latest popular movie. She was TELLING me to take her to the movie.
And the clip referencing propositional logic took me back to my freshman year logic course (that was 40 years ago).
A great video to remember once I am a parent.
On another note: I notice the better camera quality and like it. But you can stop the brightness going up and down by locking the exposure setting (this should be possible on both webcams and video cameras). Right now it is constantly trying to set the perfect exposure, which keeps changing because you periodically occlude and not occlude the light in the corner with your head
Ive been saying that kids are little Humans who just don't know anything yet. You have to provide them the skills, knowledges, and tools because they don't have them yet. When they do something batshit, they either don't know what will happen, and wanted to find out, or they thought something drastically different was going to happen from their actions
The abuse of therapy talk *in therapy* is bad enough.
As it turns out, ppl who have no expertise in topics still preach about them... But you got me hooked with your video. And while this was very educational, I especially liked when you highlighted that A implies B DOES NOT mean not A implies not B. I'm a math teacher, and so many people just ignore this!😅
Would definitely appreciate any additional delve into the way social media manipulates us -- and any ways we can learn to counter these effects for our own well-being, while continuing to live in such a world. That's highly useful, understanding these dark patterns and how they manifest.
Loved this, also a big +1 for the therapy talk video 😊
please make one on toxic therapy.
Parenting advice: limit screen time after dark so their sleep cycles remain intact and do wind-down activities to get them ready for sleep.
use simple logic gates such as (if) and (or) with rewards not consequences.
My niece's generation (college age) is intense on the therapy talk. She has dated a couple of people who used it to justify emotional abuse, so yes please, do a video on this! I'll share it with her.