Josette expressed her gratitude toward Smith:

“Well, I feel like a lucky guest because I have little ones, and I was so fortunate to be able to read early drafts of 18 Master Values before I knew I needed to. So now I have an almost-three-year-old and my Jack-Jack will be one on Sunday. It’s just amazing that so much of this applies already, and they’re still just babies. 

Some of these chapters like curiosity, gratitude, self-control, we have these conversations with my oldest son almost every day in some form or another. It helps me solidify and identify what my values are and make sure that I’m instilling those in him daily. Not just by what I’m telling him or by what we’re doing but how, I’m conversing with him and how I’m behaving myself because I know he’s watching.”

As they talked about the confidence their children give them with their parenting, Smith commented:

“I am especially happy when it comes to confidence. I try to think of them as little adults that I’m raising. You know, I’m not raising a little three-year-old and a little one-year-old, but they’re going to grow up, and this is shaping who they’re going to. And I’m just so lucky and blessed that I was able to have this information at such an early start, even before I had a little one.”

That prompted Smith to begin a personal story about how parenting her kids to have confidence: 

“You chose the perfect chapters for me to talk about especially confidence… I want them to overcome the depression that runs in my family and Jeremy’s family and I want them to go after what they want and to be effective and that is difficult to do when you’re battling bouts of depression.

My oldest son Luke [is] almost three, and he’s a rambunctious little boy, and he’s going to climb on top of the tallest tables encounters in the house. So the first time he did it, he was probably just barely older than a year, and he figured out it out. They just figure out a way to get into anything, and so he figured out a way and what did I do?

I ran over to him and I picked him up, and I put him on the floor, and you know what happened next? He screamed and cried, and the next time he did it again. He did it when I wasn’t looking, so I thought ‘okay, he can get up into anything in the house’. I might just have to let him. I’m just going to have to make sure that the knives are hidden away and locked in a cabinet really good.”

Shocked, Smith responded:

“I don’t even know if you’ve thought about it the fact that you’re doing that on the playground in front of other people. How many lives are you going to change, how many of them are going to think differently and think ‘hey, wait a minute? Am I over protecting my child? Don’t they need to learn how to do it on their own? Don’t know how to set their limits?’”

Smith then elaborated on what how this translates to parenting:

“This is on page 111 of 18 Master Values, and it is [about] confidence and self-esteem. It comes from doing the movement in the 80s and 90s to tell every child that they are wonderful at everything. ‘no one’s feelings got hurt’ was the greatest disservice. We each have gifts and talents and need to identify and nurture them, not everyone wins, and not everyone gets a trophy. That’s why we have to be as hands-off as possible without causing harm.

One of my spiritual mentors says words don’t teach, and I let Luke do little chores around the house. He puts his dirty clothes away. And yeah, same with shoes, he’s gonna do a few little things, like putting his little sippy cup in the sink and things like that. Sometimes, he just doesn’t want to since he’s in a mood because we all get in bad moods. And so I try to treat him like a little person that’s having a bad mood, and sometimes he doesn’t want to put on his shoes. So I say, ‘you know, that’s okay, I’ll do one and you do want’ and I kind of helped him.

One thing that a lot of parents would make their lives so much easier by is if they just treated their children with the respect that they would like to be treated with.” 

They both continued the conversation with, Josette admitting:

“Yeah, if I was three and was grumpy and felt like I didn’t want to do something,  I would want my mom to help. That is being respectful and treating them the way that I wished and that’s like the key to the whole thing. Treat them the way you wish you’d been treated. Yeah, not the way you were treated, that little conscious shift is so important.”

Josette then read a quote from the social skills chapter of Smith’s book:

“I have a bit of an issue with sharing, I just never quite got it. We’d be at playgroup with a bunch of moms and a passel of kids. And one of the kids would be playing with a truck and another kid would walk up and try to take the truck. But the first kid wouldn’t let him have it. One of the moms would get involved and would tell the first child. She said ‘Come on, give it to him. You need to share’. No. No, a man doesn’t like telling another man that when someone admires his Tesla, he should just hand over the keys. Like trying to take my glass of wine out of my hand during cocktail hour.

I’ll keep my grip firmly and one of us will probably end up with wine on her shirt. Any other child I was ever responsible for in a playing situation to tell the other kid. ‘You can have it when I’m finished.’ It almost always worked.”