24: A Nod To The Parent

 [00:00:00] In 2002 ed diner, professor of psychology at the university of Virginia, along with Martin Seligman known for his work around positive psychology, conducted an extensive study on happiness. In short, they found that the strongest correlation between happy people was the amount of, and the level of social connection that they had.

They found that good social relationships were present and necessary amongst the top 10% of the happiest people. Now, we all want to be in the top 10%, especially that top 10%, but we've been sailing in unchartered waters for gosh about a year now we're almost a year into limited physical and social interaction.

Given that diner and Seligman study, what are the repercussions been? Well, some of those effected the greatest have been parents, parents that were pulled out of their social and professional environments, environments of creating success for themselves and success for those around them. And they've been thrust into the role of teacher, of disciplinary and of at times babysitter even health care giver.

We need to acknowledge that this has not been easy. Many industries have built on the backs of working parents. Many small companies are owned and run by working parents. Many teams are made up of working parents and everybody works for different reasons. Some to make a limit and single-handedly support a family.

Others they're just contributing to a piece of the family's financial picture. And others work for the sense of accomplishment and success. That's it for still others? It's the social community that, that, that work builds around them. And for many it's a piece of all of those things. Remember, most of these parents didn't choose to homeschool their children.

These parents didn't choose to become teachers. In many cases, these parents never chose to build the skills necessary to do any of those things. And overnight they were asked to do so. Anyone who has ever needed to build a new skill knows how difficult and actually exhausting. It can be. Add in a nine-year-old kid filled with energy, add an, a moody teenager, adding a special needs child.

And many of us were handed a near impossible new job description. So it's not easy to actually knit that. Being home with our children and acting as the teacher is difficult or exhausting or stressful. For in admitting that those around us can immediately judge or improperly infer that we're not enjoying the time that we have with our kids.

I'll tell you it never feels good to fail at anything. Does it failing at raising your own kids? There's guilt in thinking that our lack of patience while homeschooling our desire to, to not continue homeschooling is based on us, not enjoying that time. Being around our kids, there's guilt and thinking that we're not cut out for teaching our own children.

Some actually feel that they're failing for the first time at the most important job they've ever had. And Kevin, but there's a reason why teachers typically have four or five years of education, maybe six, seven, eight. It isn't just to learn subjects that they're going to teach. In fact, most of that time isn't learning subjects.

It's learning to understand children, how to develop children, quite honestly, how to deal with children. There's a curriculum in psychology and organizational behavior and communication and patience and empathy. And then on top of that, content knowledge is thrown in. So many of us have, yeah, children for years, myself included the skills of being their formal teacher are not skills that we have developed.

So three months, six months, nine months, 12 months into being teachers, definite frustration can set in and that can affect our experiential living. But you are not alone, right? Anytime you learn something new or do something new frustration can set in, keep in mind this isn't just frustration because we're learning a new skill to be teachers.

We are called on to be a different kind of parent right now. This isn't just about developing a little bit more patience with our kids. It's we have to realize that added into it. All of that is this fact that something was taken away for many parents right now, it feels like success at work has been put on the back burner.

The drive we had to succeed has been called on to become a drive, to teach and to parent. And for some that need for success and achievement is missing in their life right now, [00:05:00] along with that drive. For many, the social connection within the workplace or their career is missing right now, that the adult connection. So just acknowledge that please and empirical research shows that happiness isn't built on income. It isn't built on the geography of where we live. It isn't even built on our health. Remember the strongest correlation to happiness is social connection for those parents, staying home full time with their kids, many have lost that social interaction connection that they had within their work communities.

It is more important than ever to find ways to stay connected with your teams, your communities, your companies, your collaborators, your friends. This past year, the world lost a business, visionary, a culture creator an incredible strength, just strategic human being and a respected mentor to many, not a celebrity but someone whose external mission was delivering happiness.

To other people. So when who built a billion dollar iconic company with the purpose of making the customer happy he transformed not only e-commerce, but in the process, corporate culture across the globe, his purpose wasn't profit, his purpose wasn't success, his purpose wasn't size. He sells proclaimed, didn't even care about the things that he sold.

He only cared about making the customer happy. The man delivered happiness to millions. And yet as news filtered in about the remaining months of his life, perhaps what he delivered to so many, he was searching for himself and yet never found it sad to think that the man who was able to touch so many perhaps was unable to allow others to, to touch him.

Tony Shay, former CEO of Zappos. Tragically passed away at 46 years old. So as I sat. And thought about that. Thinking about these two things that have been on my mind for some time, the passing of Tony Shea, and perhaps the biggest challenge as generations parents have ever faced. I realized that this common theme of necessary social interaction exists, real social interaction, real experiential interaction.

Without it, we will become overwhelmed. Without it, we will feel alone without it. We will feel unfulfilled without it. We will search unsuccessfully for happiness. See, we were designed as such social creatures, needing social and real meaningful relationships. Doesn't matter who we are. I've talked to many parents deeply in the last few months, and if you're one.

You are not allowed. It's been hard. You are being forced to learn new skills and other skills that you've been so good at are seemingly unnecessary right now, even taken away. So know that you were doing good work, know that you're doing important work. You're doing necessary work.

You're doing meaningful work. You're doing deep work. I know I'm a parent too. I've seen the homeschooling parenting memes on social media, the hair on fire and adult beverage and hand meme. The coffee cup filled with wine meme. The list goes on and although some might be funny, every homeschooling parent has probably posted one of those.

But the underlying theme is we have this large group of parents feeling alone and frustrated and overwhelmed and even unsuccessful for much of the hours of their day. And over time, if we aren't careful, it can have an effect on our mental health, our physical health or emotional health. So parents take care of those three.

I don't know how ask for help. And for those of you non-parents that are scratching your head at the seeming odd topic of a podcast, just reach out to a parent that, you know, commend them for what they're doing, encourage them for what they're doing, acknowledge them for what they're doing and ask them if you can help props, the help they need is to have a short adult conversation in lieu of that adult beverage.

So this week I asked you to share this with as many parents as you know, I believe as many parents as possible need this nod and acknowledgement and high five and thumbs up a nod as a simple greeting of understanding. And every single parent just needs a little nod right now.