DOD242: When Kid-Friends are Fighting and Your Child Might Be the Issue

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:02 Clip: I'm the cool dad, that's my thing I know now what I can offer you that no one else can Complete and under-dependent I'm a man, I'm sensitive I need to feel loved, I need part of being a father that I enjoy

0:00:29 Tom: Welcome to Dear Old Dads, the podcast that's not playing nice. I'm Tom Curry. I am joined, as always, by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello, gentlemen.

0:00:38 Eli: Give me the podcast. I want to play with it all by myself.

0:00:43 Tom: Hey, we haven't talked about this. I wanted to bring this up. Are you guys excited for Thanksgiving? Because we're recording right before. We're not going to record the week of Thanksgiving. It's my favorite holiday. I wonder what you guys are doing for Thanksgiving.

0:00:55 Eli: I'll give the easy answer. I am headed once again to Rock City. I'm talking, of course, about Cleveland, Ohio, the greatest city in these fine United States, where I will be visiting my entire extended family on my father's side. Three generations. We have folks coming from California, folks coming from Pennsylvania, folks, coming from all the way at the tippy top of Maine, all gathering in one place to eat nut loaf and celebrate the one thing that we all have in common the last name of the man who we're all related to yes this

0:01:03 Tom: Giving did you say to eat nut loaf I think you've described this before this is

0:01:29 Thomas: I can't call anything nut loaf. Sorry.

0:01:34 Eli: Is a yearly tradition here on Dear Old Dads which is I remind you guys what my Thanksgiving is like and you guys yes and you guy hate it so my aunt and uncle who host no I've tried that before but it's a strong no from my family let me tell you so my aunt and Uncle are are lay Buddhist priests in the Zazen tradition. And so they are vegetarians. And so instead of turkey or chicken, although when my grandfather was alive, her dad, we did go to the store and we would buy like a little bit of turkey. And he would just have it

0:01:41 Thomas: Nut loaf.

0:01:38 Tom: What your kink is yeah right can I just fuck a body pillow instead of learn about nut loaf

0:02:10 Eli: In a plastic container. It was the only time meat ever entered their house. And he Would just be like, yeah, you can't have Thanksgiving without turkey. And we all just sort of were like, all right, man. But yes, the ceremonial meal is nut loaf, which my uncle oh

0:02:22 Thomas: Nut Loaf.

0:02:23 Tom: I feel like that's not ceremonial like just because you're doing that a lot

0:02:24 Thomas: You could name it something else.

0:02:27 Eli: No it's ceremony

0:02:27 Tom: Doesn't mean can you make a nut loaf ceremonial do you stick candles in

0:02:30 Eli: I'll tell you how we make it ceremony the youngest child of the family every year the the youngestchild

0:02:35 Thomas: Nuts in it? We can't. It can't be called nut loaf! I just can't, that's...

0:02:42 Eli: Through a rotation of the children who are still children gets to choose what animal they want shape they want the nut loaf to be in and then my uncle

0:02:51 Tom: It okay this feels weird we're not eating animals but we're eating we're anthropomorphizing

0:02:52 Thomas: Yeah, this is weird. Yeah, that is worse. They name it?

0:02:56 Tom: The nut that doesn't

0:02:56 Eli: They and remorifies the nut loaf in 2008 he overruled us and it was Obama

0:03:08 Thomas: Is that a racial hate crime or...

0:03:08 Tom: I don't like this I don'T like this this feels weird to me

0:03:10 Eli: Can I say it felt more hate crimey than was intended it was intent as a nut loaf of admiration I don't know if that's how people would feel

0:03:17 Thomas: I would have made a third nut loaf of Obama if I could.

0:03:21 Tom: Like a nut loaf homage what if you finish your first nut loaf do you have to wait wait 20 minutes before you can get seconds.

0:03:22 Eli: Yeah exactly an homage to get a second one yeah you You need a blue Gatorade? Yeah, exactly. But yeah, I'll be headed to Cleveland. And yeah, it's the happiest I ever am. It's a little, I'm going to, here's something, let me sneak into the corner here and say something true. Used to be like, without a doubt, the happiest they ever felt. And I sort of like, it'S weird. I kind of don't have mental illness when I'm there, which I know is like a crazy thing to say, but like the part of my life, which is that like every other thought is a weird demon saying the meanest thing I can think of to myself just doesn't really happen there but now that I have a kid mental illness is kind of back right because it used to just be like sleep in and eat what I want and see my family and play board games but now I am I am still parenting there's that factor as a parent where you go like and I don't know if you guys have noticed this and hopefully I'm not alone have you noticed that the things that you used to like really really love for you are now not about you anymore

0:04:04 Tom: That's awesome. Oh, that spoils it. That's nice.

0:04:10 Thomas: Good yeah

0:04:19 Tom: Right. Like, what do you mean?

0:04:33 Eli: Like thanksgiving for example right it's like well okay like you might enjoy thanksgiving I I hope you enjoy thanksgiving but it's not about you it's about your kid and whether or not your kid is okay and does your kid have the food they need

0:04:44 Tom: Nah, I'm still selfish. Yeah.

0:04:41 Thomas: I think you I think you're more this way than tom and I for sure to say the least right to a certain extent like it depends on the thing but yeah no I I hear you

0:04:51 Tom: I guess I'm goofing around, but like I definitely want to make sure that the other people in my charge are having a good time and they're well cared for and they'RE enjoying themselves. But I don't do that to the exclusion to where I'm like, Like, yeah, I'm also, like, my joy or happiness or fun is not happening either. You know what I mean? But I do think that that's something that parents wrestle with all the time. Because I will say that you can pour all of the available energy you have into trying to make that happen for someone else, like your kid. And then you just forget to take care of you.

0:05:26 Tom: And, like I am guilty of doing that in, like practical ways. I'll do this all the Time. Like I'll get stuff for Haley, like make sure she's taken care of. Then I'll look around and be like, I forgot to get myself anything to eat or drink. I entirely forgot me in this. Yeah.

0:05:39 Thomas: I don't do that

0:05:38 Eli: We had this conversation the other day anna and I were food shopping and I I grabbed you know what hippies are the vegan cheesy

0:05:49 Tom: Uh, yes. Haley loves those. Yeah, they're actually pretty good.

0:05:50 Eli: Poofs yeah so I'm getting a couple of the big bags and I take them off the shelf and I say and I mean I'm not doing I never would do this but like I'm Not doing the like oh here's a sad thing in my life are you noticing it anna I'm genuinely enthusiastic I'm taking them down and putting them in the cart and I go these are great for when I don't have time to eat I could just eat a bag of the hippies and I feel like I've had a meal and she and she said to me I want you to imagine for a moment that I said that to you how awful you would feel if I saidthat about myself and I said I think you're not accounting how much more your happiness means than mine got her

0:06:35 Tom: Nailed it. One other quick thing I want to circle back to is we talked about this, I think a year ago, maybe longer on this show is I've been doing the gratitude practice still with the boys I

0:06:44 Thomas: And that's saying a lot for you because I don't know that's tough fucking jesus you know how you practice batting practice with a big donut on the bat oh this is a sports thing anyway tom doing gratitude practice is like his gratitude muscles are gonna be fucking That's all I'm saying.

0:06:48 Tom: Started back up

0:06:50 Eli: Oh the whole thing's not on fire nope muscles muscles are also a sports thing do a different men

0:07:04 Thomas: It's like him training to jump on fucking Jupiter. Oh, you're right. God damn it.

0:07:07 Eli: Of training is a sports think no do this you said jump that's sports even though you ended it with space do a metaphor that isn't sports that's extra sports that word sports invaded space that was the worst time of the nerds lives those are nightmares that we would be out there in space hanging out with cool aliens and then a big cool athlete would come and dunk on them ruin intergalactic relations that's what what that movie's about

0:07:14 Thomas: Space Jam. No, that's also. Oh.

0:07:15 Tom: Recently no No, but we restarted it the other day and we've got like a text thread that's just for gratitude and like we just pops and sometimes the kids are just, they're fucking 18 and 19. So just fucking ridiculous in there and they'll put silly bullshit in there, but sometimes they'll say real shit and it's pretty cool. And we tried, I tried to do something every day.

0:07:51 Thomas: Is this like a family text thread?

0:07:53 Tom: It's just me and Finn and Donovan. So I just told them, I was like, Hey, we're going to start doing this. Just the three of us. I'm like, you're required to do it. I told them like, it's mandatory that you be thankful every day. I don't care. And they were like, looked at me and laughed. And like, I started up and we've been doing it for a few weeks now and just ahead of the holiday. And I'm like, oh, we're going to keep this going on the permanent, I think. So it's been, it has been really good. And it's nice to get that sort of like window into what it is they're thinking about too.

0:08:06 Thomas: Awesome.

0:08:16 Tom: You know, like what, what's kind of on their mind. So, it has been great.

0:08:20 Eli: Lovely but gentlemen you know the only thing sweeter than tom's gratitude practice with his beautiful beautiful sons why it's a lack of auto ads that you could have over at patreon.com forward slash d and d minus much as tom's text thread is devoid of negativity your podcasting experience can be devoid of auto adds mine are all in spanish I I don't know about yours. Maybe you get some ads for ice. We talked about that last week in Spanish.

0:08:49 Thomas: In Spanish, that would be ironic, too.

0:08:52 Tom: That doesn't make

0:08:52 Eli: That seems like an even nicher mark. Our podcast in Spanish, really, again, I think they're getting no hits there. But you can make it all happen over at patreon .com forward slash dear old dads. As Tom does to negativity in the minds and hearts of his children, rip into it.

0:09:08 Tom: Sense yeah

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0:09:18 Thomas: So the other day, Lydia gets a disturbing text message from two other moms. It's one of those things where it's like a message. You get a message that just ruins your day or night or even your year. It is one of those things that instantly put her in an impossible position, which is all kinds of crap. So she gets a text from two Other moms saying, hey, Phoebe's been exhibiting aggressive behavior at school. And we have some ideas for how we need to work on it. I resented it a little bit because it was like, there wasn't any discussion or like, hey, here's what's happening. Presenting that first or like reaching and understanding that Phoebe was the issue. It was just your kid's the worst here. We need to help you parent to fix her you know so that sucked yeah

0:10:08 Eli: Also, like, don't talk about my kid exhibiting aggressive behavior like they're a monkey that isn't taking to the zoo you've put them

0:10:15 Tom: That's really weird language that's really really uh phoebe is throwing her feces at passersby again and

0:10:20 Eli: In she's failing to thrive in the social group we've chosen for

0:10:24 Thomas: Well yeah yeah it was in what's his name's voice yeah fucking

0:10:31 Eli: Her sometimes you got to reach out to other parents to talk about issues but like before we even get into the details I want to point out that like one of the kindest things that I think you can do is start a conversation letting another person know they aren't in trouble and that you're on the same team right and this is something that I do all the time right and that like confrontational people often view as like weakness or deception but it's actually just taking a conversation that is by definition going to be unpleasant and saying like hey we can all do four sentences right up here at the tippy top and it can feel 10 000 times better to have this conversation and it definitely sounds like they should have done that there so tell us about the aggressive behavior who was she throwing her feces at

0:10:32 Thomas: Attenborough's voice hmm yeah well and so and so for one also I kind of resented that like yes I get that they're the moms and it is a girl group of friends so I get it but it also felt like Like, hey, when it comes to this kind of thing, like you're better off talking to me than Lydia, first off. But also like she's not the only parent of Phoebe. Like that felt a little weird, too, because I was like, can you just include I guess include me in the reply? Because because instantly when you get that kind of message, I don't know about you folks, but that that instantly kind of ruins our night. Because for one, there's no there's No way to respond. On you either have to reject the framing and now create a conflict with your kid's friend's mom

0:11:55 Tom: Yeah

0:11:56 Thomas: Or you just have to what like submit to the fucking will of their judgment that our kid is the problem so it took some doing to think of like kind of how to even respond to this because I felt like for one thing I will say this lydia and I and I think you know she'll edit and she can you know let me know if this is okay to say but

0:12:13 Eli: Lydia you chime in right you voice voice of God, this fucking statement, if you have to, girl.

0:12:16 Thomas: No she she's more defensive than I am right right away was like, I don't believe it kind of thing was, was that, you know, cause it is true that while Phoebe has killed several people, that's usually at home. We haven't ever experienced any issues at school. And so it is truth. It is true that it was news to us that this was happening at school, possibly that she was like hitting or pushing or do whatever it is at school and that was, that sucks because I've been really grateful with how much I know Phoebe's brain is doing all the time like I just I've just been very worried that Phoebe is gonna not be able to have friends if she's too domineering the way she has been with Arlo because like I've seen it with with Arlo it became really sad where like they used to be the best of little friends but then Phoebe cannot stop controlling everything ever like she just can't it's more than typical kid stuff it's like she is not able to recognize that she's doing that and to stop like she can stop for at most a little bit of time, but then she'll just go right back to it to the point where it's like we'd be monitoring them playing and be like, you got to let him choose the game or choose the whatever. And she would do it for like a second and then would pretty quickly lose it. And back then Arlo was just all about kind of doing whatever she wanted because, you know, he's the little brother, he is little.

0:13:34 Tom: Right it's his big sister yeah right

0:13:36 Thomas: Yeah. And they were having fun and he would he would reach his limits sometimes. But he also like he's such a sweet kid that it mostly worked out. But then once I I accidentally introduced him to video games. He just pretty much always wants to do that. And sometimes I'm like, well, you should play with Phoebe because for one, you should not be playing so much video games, we should not be playing. So I'll be like, Hey, let's, we'll take a break. You play with phoebe, that kind of thing. But sometimes it's like, all right, play with phebe. And then phoeby instantly controls. It goes too far. And I'm Like, Hey phoeb, I'm on your side in that. I will, I will tell Arlo to play with you because you're bored and you want to play, but like, you gotta let him be in charge sometimes. You know, to the point where she'll literally, we'll go through several rounds of that. And I'm like, Hey, you got it. And then after like fourth time of her not letting him do something and there being a fine, like, all right, I'm not going to have him play with you. Like you just, you know?

0:14:28 Thomas: Like it's, it's that bad to where it's like, she can't control it.

0:14:28 Tom: Yeah

0:14:29 Eli: It becomes a tattle situation, right? You become the enforcer of play.

0:14:34 Thomas: Well, I'll even listen in. It's not, they're not tattling. Like I'll listen in and hear that it's not going well. You know? It's, she's just unable. The point I want to make there is not to pile on Phoebe. Be. It's just that it's even contrary to her own interests, I think is the important thing. Like it's, she's unable to stop it even when she wants to. That's the part I'm pretty certain of. And that's tough. So anyway, we'd never heard about any of this at school though. And I thought, my thinking was that it was about expectations. Like it made a weird kind of sense to me where it's like, well, she expects that she can control Arlo, but she doesn't expect that she can control her little friends. And in the same way that she's like in public, she is totally totally different because I don't believe she had an expectation that she can control the environment all the time. And I think my thinking was it comes from that expectation. When you expect to be able to do something you can't, that creates more of an anger and more of a like, you know, that kind of reaction than when you don't expect that. And it's, you know she's in third grade and we've never heard of any problems like this. And so to be fair to Lydia, it was alarming to be like, okay, not only is there a problem, but like we're skipping past that there's a problem and we're going straight to the like, we need to fix this together.

0:15:44 Eli: It's your fault. And here's, and we have, yeah, the dice are so loaded on that text to like, it's your kid's fault. Your kid is the problem. We already have the solutions and we're here to dictate to them, to you what it means about the difference of like, what kind of parents we are that you're saying it and not, I'll tell you, Thomas, and I want to hear how the conversation went and how it ended, but we go through the exact same thing with Max, right?

0:16:07 Thomas: Mm. Mm, mm.

0:16:07 Eli: Which is that last year, Max had a hitting phase on us, but was an angel in school. And this year he has been hitting in school and it stopped at home. And we worry about those same things because kindergarten is when the socialization starts to happen. And that's when people say who their friends are, who they like and who they don't like, and if Max is hauling off and bopping people, which he is, kids are going to start to remember that and think of him as the kid who hits and not like him.

0:16:35 Eli: And right now he doesn't care at all, even a little bit, but he is someday going to care. And when that happens, it's going to be really, really hard to explain to him like, oh no, they very reasonably do not like you, right?

0:16:39 Thomas: I feel this so hard. Yeah! Yep yep.

0:16:51 Eli: It is their right to not like you because of the things you did. You made those choices and now you have to do very mature reparative work that might not succeed yeah

0:17:00 Thomas: That might be impossible. Yeah exactly. I feel that so hard that's exact - I and it breaks my heart. It's really a tough thing for me mentally. I've been worried about this with Pheebs for her whole life because of how I see her act with Arlo. And like there's elements, obviously I remember as a kid being a little like this in certain ways, like it was different. I also was less social. So it wasn't like as important. So in some ways it's way worse for PheeBS because she's very social. Like she needs to be around people. Whereas like I was just kind of a solo kid in my environment of my household where everything, we were starved for attention and everything, it kind of naturally led me to be kind of domineering in social situations and also could just be innate personality stuff. Who knows? And it wasn't good for me. And I know that feeling of rejection and I've worried about it for Pheebs forever. And I've been trying to like, just hope that I can somehow affect her for the better, just for her sake, you know, because I, it's like, I've Been telling her for a few years, like just in, in softer ways, like when it would happen with Arlo, you Know, I'd be like, Hey, you know, that's, what's really hard is like, I know you always, her answer is always like, well, but I have the better idea. I have a better game. I Have the better, whatever, you know? Like whatever it is. And it's like, Hey, yeah, I Know. I know. I Know it's they're

0:18:13 Tom: Sympathize with her there though So, like, if you've got the better idea, it's like, eh, mine's better. It's better, his fucking game sucks, dad, Jesus.

0:18:19 Thomas: Not gonna, they're not gonna want to play with you. And like, you're going to be sad when people don't like people want to have their ideas valued. It's all that kind of stuff. And I've been really really worried. And she's had,

0:18:30 Tom: Did a teacher just say, fine, let's play your boring fucking game? Like, because if you just say it with a good attitude like that, it should work fine.

0:18:33 Thomas: Let's play your stupid bullshit crap. Yeah. Great. No. And, and she tries and that, and that's the thing is she's so sweet. Like she wants to, that's what's so sad. She, she wants zu have friends and she, and she often, like I said, it's kind of against her own interest. And that's, that, that sad part of it. So anyway, while I understand Lydia's reaction, I was a little bit more like, Hey, the night that we got this text, she literally hit Lydia like several times. And I was like, maybe we should be more open to this having happened because of what, you know, like she just beat the shit out of you tonight. Like she's having some problems, but it was also really hard.

0:19:05 Eli: Buying

0:19:06 Tom: This feels like it, yeah. It's hard to be realistic about your kids' shortcomings, though. Like, that's something that, like... I just want to real quick grab that, real quick.

0:19:22 Thomas: Yeah, it's not hard for me, but yes, I get it. I mean, it's, it sucks. Like it's depressing, but it's yeah.

0:19:25 Tom: Yeah, but for a lot of parents, yeah, yeah... Yeah, I guess that's more what I mean. I think it's essential that we do it, and there's a lot of parents that don't, and it's really fucking insane when they don't because that just works against their own kids. If you're not realistic about your kids' shortcomings, you can't help them with them. We're so defensive when they're little because they're helpless, and our job is to help them and be defensive of them when they'RE tiny. Tiny but like at some point you have to be like all right now you are exhibiting a behavior that's a problem and I have to see it

0:19:59 Thomas: It's the same reason that I feel like I've been depressed all my life is I don't do cognitive dissonance. Like I can't pretend that I like I'm any better than I am. I can'T pretend my kids don't have the faults they have. And it sucks it's depressing. So I get that most people's reaction is like, oh, well, I'll just make that not true in my brain. Cause I feel that's what most humans do. Too.

0:20:19 Thomas: They're just like, oh, I don't like that. It'll just not be true in my brain. And then I'm great.

0:20:23 Eli: And something that I often fight when it comes to max's behavior I'm good at not doing this but it is an impulse in me is like I manage his moods very well I manage his rigidity. I am very good at it. And so when an outside force is like, Hey, Max hurt somebody or Max hit somebody, Max had a tantrum and did this thing. I'm like, cool. I would have handled that situation. Okay. I'm very good at calming him down. And it's very hard for me not to be like, did you try any of the things that I talked to you about? Cause I have a fucking game plan. Like I have, uh, I wrote you a 19 page email at the start of the year. And like, again, I know better than to come with that attitude, but like when Max, and again ,I want to get back to the the Phoebe stuff in a second, but like when Max started hitting at the beginning of the year, second week of kindergarten, he threw a chair and it hit another kid and the kid had to go to the nurse and the whole thing. We're feeling so terrible. So we have this full team meeting, right?

0:20:46 Thomas: Right, yeah. Yeah, that's yeah. Yep. Yep, I get it. Yeah. Jeez. Hmm.

0:21:16 Eli: Our teacher, our principal, his special ed teacher, his aid, his speech teacher, the OT, the in -school psychiatrist, like we're all sitting at this long table. And the first thing I said is, the number one goal is to make your classroom safe. And The moment I said that the moment the moment everyone at that table realized I wasn't there to tell them you did a bad job. Fuck you. We all got on the same team and it's been great. And it's, it's always been working with them as fans. I mean, again, the opposite of Tom's life luck is our kid luck.

0:21:44 Eli: Just every school we go to is filled with loving and amazing people who want to help. But I still really understand that instinct to be like, ah, I'll be the judge.

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0:22:03 Thomas: I also have a thing where I'm always trying to look for what's And I still thought it was even if this might have been true, that the best that these other parents have is their own kids words for it. And we talked to Phoebe and she says otherwise. So I thought at least they owed us the respect of like not just having come to the conclusion and mandated it on us because we haven't heard from the school like we haven'T heard from anybody. So there's kind of two separate things. One is like dealing with the Phoebe problem, you know, and the other is like this kind of interpersonal thing with his parents where I did, I felt like it was a little fucking unfair to spring that text on Lydia. Like, I don't know how she was supposed to handle that or respond to it on her own. Like it took, you Know, putting our heads together for like an hour to figure out how to navigate our way. Because I also was like, hey, don't fly off the hint like we can't react badly to this because picture in their mind, their kid has been hit by our kid or something, you know, in their mind, like imagine if our kid has been abused by another kid, we're not going to be super fucking happy. And if the response from the parent is anything defensive or shitty, because these are Phoebe's good little friends. These aren't like acquaintances. These are like her best little friends and I'm like, I don't want to fuck things up for phoebe and her best friends I

0:23:17 Thomas: I want to I want to make sure that the parents feel respected so I was like trying to navigate all those things that I really did feel like it was unfair for them to start there but I also in my mind I'm like well she did commit several murders tonight so I believe that this is probably happening yeah

0:23:11 Eli: Of course. Yeah. Well, and you also, Also, these are your community, right? Like, we all saw our kid friends' parents become our parents' friends. Oh, sorry. I'm so sorry, Thomas. I saw my kids... I'm just fucking universalizing. Also, Tom, I'm sorry. Many of the people listening to our podcast saw kids' friends become parent friends. That's been true of my preschool group, right. That's our friends. And then we sort of mushed our kids together. But, like, eventually what happens is that this kid just keeps coming over to your house and eventually they bring your parents and you gotta be like alright man you racist please don't be racist you just really I can even let you be racist against a couple of like Italians you wanna do Italians I can let you do Italians so there's also this nature of like this is supposed to be my social network coming through and we're about to have this and like again it's a huge thing I worry like I genuinely character jokes aside about like I'm a psychopath like I stay up at night worrying that That someone is going to come up and confront Anna sometime about Max hitting their kid.

0:23:43 Thomas: Yeah what's what's happening hmm yeah so true hmm yeah hmm

0:24:37 Eli: Like, I genuinely have trouble sleeping when I worry about that. Because I, no, no. Because Anna is so sensitive and empathetic. No, if they did it to me, oh, I would love for them to do it to be. I'd be like, let me explain why little Tommy deserves it. See, right back into the, but like, I worry about that so much because I do want Max to have a community. So, sorry, go ahead.

0:24:40 Thomas: Now is that because you think anna's gonna kill them or is that oh okay okay just oh yeah yeah yeah it's really hard no no yeah

0:24:59 Eli: So, they give you this shitty intro.

0:25:01 Tom: Gonna ask a quick question do you think this would have have been better done and better received if it had been a phone call instead of a text message

0:25:07 Thomas: Yeah no not me I I don't know if other people might feel that way but yeah I just don't I don'T care about that stuff

0:25:14 Tom: Okay I just wonder if there could be more I don't know like a little like softer tone to

0:25:19 Thomas: Sorry let me me let me to be fair what they said was hey this is happening do you have time for a call tonight at whatever time was what the time I'm remembering that's what the text said yeah except like I said it was with the already conclusion of the call was to figure out how to fix our child it wasn't hey we got to talk and maybe establish that there's a problem the call Was two other parents ganging up on Lydia, two other moms, of how to present the fix of our child and how to, you know, like, so that didn't feel great to me. I didn't like that they were doing that.

0:25:28 Tom: It oh okay that feels reasonable

0:25:55 Thomas: And so, like what I landed on there in terms of the interpersonal thing was I thought, I was like, okay, what could anyone ask better of us than to both rant that this, you know like this could be happening, but also to say, our kid says differently. Like our kid is telling us that her friends are kind of bullying her and that this isn't on Phoebe. Like Phoebe is telling Us that she's being bullied a little bit and that there hasn't been any physical stuff. Now, in my mind, I'll be honest, I kind of don't believe Phoebe at this point, but she is saying I also am not 100 % sure. Sure. So it's like I said, OK, so we should say, you know, this is the kind of thing that like if true, we take this incredibly seriously. And this is we obviously be very, very alarmed and not OK with any sort of hitting or anything. Obviously, Phoebe tells us the story differently. She tells us something's happening differently. Maybe we can go through the school. Maybe we Can get somebody because like when Arlo was hitting, we heard from a teacher immediately. That was another thing where it's weird that we haven't heard this from anybody else. Like we haven't heard that Phoebe's hitting from a teacher. We haven't hurt, you know? So,

0:27:02 Thomas: So there was part of me that's like, it's not insane to doubt it, but also again, Phoebe committed several armed robberies and murdered eight people tonight in front of us. So we, I think they're probably right, especially because it's two other moms who are saying both their kids said this happened. I, in my mind, I'm like, probably Adnan did it, but it's possible. And that's what we told them. They were confused. And I, yeah, yeah.

0:27:21 Eli: But you're Islamophobic. Yeah. Can you get that insane lady from Twitter to just respond to their text?

0:27:35 Thomas: So, so that was, yeah it's true.

0:27:36 Eli: You gotta have been here for all the deep cuts, kids. You gotta been here around.

0:27:40 Thomas: So that was kind of where I led it on was like, I just told Lydia, I was like, if another parent did this, like if our kid were being hit and we approached the first off, I wouldn't have approached them in that way. That's insane. I would have said, Hey, can we talk? I think there might be an issue going on at school. And I might might try to establish that our kid's the problem rather than just saying, hey, we got to solve your fucking kid. You know, here's me and this other mom. I didn't like that. But setting that aside, is there more that we could ask than if this were to happen to us for them to acknowledge it and to say like, hey my kid's telling me different, can we at least maybe go through the school? I felt like that would be a reasonable response. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I felt like that kind of hits all the bases. Because in my mind, I'm trying to tell Lydia, like, I think the answer is going to be that phoebe did this so like don't let's not go too crazy yeah don't go too even like

0:28:18 Tom: That does feel reasonable yeah

0:28:26 Eli: Yeah, you don't want to overplay your hand. Nice try, fuckos. Oh, there's video? There is video.

0:28:33 Tom: Yeah

0:28:33 Thomas: Even though I think the way they approach this was bad I don't want to go too heavy on that because if ultimately our kid is hitting their kids like fucking cool

0:28:42 Eli: That's the other thing, too, is you don'T want to demand perfection from someone else who's in a very emotionally it's like well you didn't ask nicely enough for my kid to stop punching your kid

0:28:45 Thomas: Yep yep exactly yep yep

0:28:52 Tom: Yeah I sympathize with you because it would be tough if it's like Like, well, it is kind of in character with her behavior at home, so you can't, like, dismiss it. And you've got two people, two different moms saying this. Like, so, like the chances of it not being, being entirely bullshit is low, right? It just seems like, ah, fuck. I'm sympathetic with both sides. Like, if that was my kid, I don't know that I would know the perfect way to approach it, you know?

0:29:05 Thomas: -hmm yeah yep yeah all of a sudden we're in fucking andor trying to to maintain all these political things. Cause like, I just don't, I don't want to blow it for Phoebe. I don'T want to like, you know, and blow up with these friends, parents that we see all the time.

0:29:29 Tom: Yeah, and I guess I would offer this counterpoint to, like go through the school. Like, that would not be my intention because, like, I would rather not involve the school at first if we're friends and we can just resolve this as friends than to sort of institutionalize it. And then she gets in trouble or she has some, you know.

0:29:42 Thomas: Yeah. I guess I wasn't, the phrasing was like, Oh, I want to kind of talk to somebody or, or get a view from someone at the school. It was essentially like, cause they're not there either. None of us are here seeing the thing. We're all hearing it from our kids. And I get that. Like, it's probably going to be true based on everything we said, but also I'm in a position where Phoebe's outright telling us it's not true. It's hard for us to just say, no, you're like my parents would have said, no you're lying. It is hard for me to just to say that even though it probably ultimately is what was happening.

0:30:11 Thomas: So that's where we landed. And so the other thing that makes it complicated is, and this is so funny because I totally remember this dynamic as a kid, there's two friends involved. One, Phoebe is completely fine with when it's just her and the friend, they're totally fine. The other, I think is also a strong personality like Phoebe. And when that friend is the three of them then the other friend kind of biases toward the pushover friend and the pusHOVER friend biases toward her a little bit and so it sort of feels like there's two Phoebes but my Phoebe's not quite as popular with the pusHover kid so it's like a 2v1 thing is what it kind of kind of feels based on like the patterns of what's happened because I've heard no

0:30:49 Eli: Based on sitcom dynamics you got to find out right

0:30:52 Thomas: Based on I'd like I I've heard some stories about this other kid that were like Like, maybe this other kid is not amazing. Maybe Phoebe's not entirely at fault. But if they've 2v1'd my kid, like, you can't really fight that. There's not, you know, like you're not going to be like, well, what if the other kid is a shit?

0:31:10 Thomas: You know, it's hard, especially when the two moms have apparently teamed up.

0:31:10 Eli: Now right interesting thank you for your feedback I think there's a child -based conspiracy happening and I'd like to put I'd like to table that as an option

0:31:20 Thomas: Well, the point is, I could just as easily see this having gone the other way, depending on, you now, like how the interactions with Phoebe and this third kid are. Like it's if Phoebe was closer with the pushover kid, maybe then the other kid was they could be doing the same things. But then all of a sudden the problem is the other kids because it's just that, you know, it's where there's two strong personalities. Like one is going to have to win out. And Phoebe Was not winning out. And I don't know if that means the other kit is a saint and Phoebe sucks or if both our kids are aggressive. But one is more on the side of the other friend or the other friends. Kind of, anyway, point is, after that, what was weird was the third mom hadn't chimed in and I did appreciate this, that after we said like, hey, maybe we can try to like check in with the teacher and just ask and see, you know, it was kind of, that wasn't like file a formal complaint. It was like, let's get a, yeah, get a neutral, get an

0:32:10 Eli: I'll see you in court

0:32:13 Tom: I'll see you in hell.

0:32:13 Thomas: Neutral view. Like, yeah.

0:32:14 Eli: You guys when you became our friends you signed an arbitration clause so you have to

0:32:19 Thomas: And what I did Appreciate about the third mum was she kind of replied as though she wasn't in on this, which was nice. It was, I don't know if that's true or not, or if that was a quick diplomatic decision. Well, she was like, oh, hey, just responding now. Don't have time for that call. Well, cause it made it seem like the two other moms had already talked and had prearranged a time of a call that was like that's what it read as like the time of the phone call was already them. But then later when the third mom chimes in, she Was like, Oh yeah. Hey, sorry. I wasn't available for that. And so it was like oh, okay, that I guess that feels better. Like we weren't being ganged up on.

0:32:29 Eli: Who are you people why am I on this text thread

0:32:32 Tom: New phone, who dis?

0:32:45 Eli: The D -Roll Dads approach, if you will. Wait, what?

0:32:55 Thomas: So then they got specific so that mom chimed in but yes uh you know my kid has said Phoebe pushed her shoved her and and then the other mom was like yeah my kid said that Phoebe shoved her down and like it got specific and was like all right I don't I don't think we're fighting this and then once we kind of confronted Phoebe with more specific information she was like oh okay well you know even though she had directly lied to her faces because she can't handle having been wrong about this kind of thing. Once we confronted her with more specifics, then it was like, well, okay. Yeah, I did do that. It's like, great.

0:33:28 Thomas: That's what we've been having a really, really tough conversation with you for an entire evening about. Now you're saying you did do it anyway. So what saved it was the kids themselves. And this is the interesting part. Phoebe and the two girls, I don't know whose idea it was. It might've been one of the other moms, but they were like, yeah, they've been seeing the guidance counselor. Like the three Like a friend's throuples therapy, which I thought was so cute. And like, so it was so indicative of the new age I hope we're in. We're like, it might've been them too. I don't know whose idea it was, but they're like yeah, today we saw the guidance counselor, the three of us to try to like work through this conflict. Yeah. And I was like, well, that's great. Okay.

0:34:08 Tom: Already working their shit out this is great this is the world I want to live in I don't have to do any parenting at all in this world this is exactly like just fucking outsource that shit that's great I love

0:34:13 Thomas: Yeah, it's not about that. It's that you do need neutral parties. Yeah. You need neutral parties.

0:34:20 Tom: It well it's about that for me thomas don't tell me what it's not about for me right

0:34:24 Thomas: Like the parents are obviously so biased in every which way. It's really hard to, you know, intentions are high. You need a neutral party to like try to manage that. And so we sort of got through it on the basis of that, where it's like, oh, okay, let's check in with how that's going. Let's whatever that, cause that is a third party from the school. So it kind of qualifies for what we were saying. And to the best of my knowledge, nothing's happened since like no violent stuff has happened. I'm hoping since Phoebe was kind of caught in a way, I think what Phoebe tends to do is like be in denial about stuff if she can be. But then when she was kindof called out and caught on that, like it doesn't work to be in denial anymore about that behavior. And I'm hopeing that that means she can check it. And, you know, but it's just this really sad thing. Like, how do we deal with like, you put it perfectly. It's exactly what I've worried about for so long.

0:35:21 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]

0:35:22 Thomas: Here's the most heartbreaking part I'll kind of end on and then we'll get more of your thoughts. During this whole process, Phoebe has only nice things to say about these girls. Like she only is saying nice things and not in a fake way. She genuinely is just like, not even like in the confrontation. Like I, that day she had said like, oh yeah, this friend's really nice, like about a different story. And so it's so heartbreaking to me because this isn't like a, oh, yeah, I, this person sucks. We shit talk each other. And this is about, and I know then third grade. So like maybe eventually it becomes that, but like what was so sad about it was Phoebe's opinion of this kid that she's having problems with is entirely positive. And it's that she can't control herself. Like she can't control her volatile emotions of needing to like control the situation or getting too frustrated. And we've seen it, like we've seen that she CAN'T do this. It's a genuine issue that we're, you know, we've been working on. The medication, I guess, is we thought it was helping. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's time to look at a higher dose or something. But like that's what's so heartbreaking is I know she doesn't want to be doing this and yet she can't control it. And I just hope that her little friends or little friends' parents, I hope they see that maybe and that it's Not like, you know, our kid is not out to hurt your kids. You know, it's just it's a self-control issue.

0:36:40 Thomas: But I don't know. It's hard to say when if your kid is getting hurt, like obviously you're not going to be super sympathetic to that I

0:36:46 Eli: And the decision that you have to make as a parent, and I speak from a place of disability, so I think I have an easier out. Because a lot of the things that I see Max do, I'm like, oh yeah, that's his disability.

0:36:59 Thomas: I don't know that this isn't something like that but yes yeah yeah for sure

0:37:02 Eli: Right, but I have the diagnosis, so I just get to be like, Like, nope, I have a piece of paper that tells me what this is. As opposed, because you're in a much more difficult, much more subtle place.

0:37:10 Thomas: But you can't make kids be friends with your kid you know that might excuse some of the like or that might soften the blow of like oh my kid's not directly trying to hurt your kid but you can'T make people be friends WITH someone who's hurting

0:37:21 Tom: It would soften the blow with the parents right in terms of the

0:37:23 Thomas: Them yeah yeah that's what I mean yeah yeah exactly

0:37:24 Tom: Judgment from parent to parent, but it's not going to like create a friendship. Yeah.

0:37:27 Eli: The thing that comes for me from the identification of disability is that I understand, or at least my understanding around it right now, is that Max will probably have to do a reboot at some point in his life and education. I hope he gets over this. I hope He stops making these choices. And I hope we socialize as well and makes friends. But I know lots of autistic people in my life. And one of the things that you need to do to assist an autistic person is that they occasionally need a social reboot. And a lot of the most painful experiences, because I again, one of The things that I try to do is read autistic people talking about their experiences, how they handled those situations, and how it was to live through those situations. Transformations and one of the things that happens a lot is that autistic people tend to get into really really intense social spirals where they are in a friend group and it gets worse and then the situation gets worse and it gets worse and worse and worse and worse and they cannot recover it and one of your jobs as a parent is to say hey it's time to pick up our tools

0:38:25 Thomas: And you can't recover it. Yeah, yeah. Man.

0:38:34 Eli: From this particular relationship and start over again right and that means often having to restart social things, it means inconvenience for you, right? It means moving classrooms. It means moving activities, not going to that dance class anymore, not going to that social club anymore. But like one of the relatively well -researched solutions to that kind of thing is a social reset. I suspect that Max will have to do one in school. I expect that he will probably have to do a few just in the various activities that he ends up being involved in. And it's something they, I take that on as like, Hey, this is a thing that might be part of your life. I'm going to make that happen. Right. Cause like one of the conversations that Anna and I have is her worry about his ostracization because she saw her brother be ostracized really badly. Their parents were just like, stop being weird, you know, bring your fiddle to school and play him a jaunty tune. Right. And so he went through all of that social outcast, all of that suffering. And I saw it with childhood best friend, right? Like I, I talk about this all the time, but like my best friend from age six to 16 was someone who without question would be on the autism spectrum today, flapped and stammered and absolutely all of the diagnostic criteria was evidence in this childhood best friend. And all I watched him do was get bullied, bullied by kids, bullied, by the adults

0:40:03 Eli: Around him, bullied by his own family, ostracized over and over and over again. And what he needed was not for people to be like, well, try listening when other people talk. He had a disability. What he needed was a reset. What he needed was a fresh start with people who did not have that baggage. And it's it's hard. It's hard because as adults, we often think that is a coping skill, right? That you have to face up and make amends. And right. Exactly. Yeah.

0:40:29 Thomas: Well We also think of our friends as more permanent, you know it's it's weird it would be weird for us to be like well, give up all my friends.

0:40:35 Tom: Yeah. But let me, let me jump in real quick and just add this to the, cause exactly that is what I was thinking is the thing is that most of the time for most people, the friends that we make when we're really young are temporary friends. The friends of just like, we're friends because they're in our class or they're on our bus or like whatever. And we're probably not going to hold them tight to our lives forever. So to your point about a social reset, I think there's points in your life where you get natural social resets almost every year you go to a different school you get new kids in your class you you know move from elementary school to junior high which you know it has hugely different people in it and then junior high to high school there's so many natural opportunities as kids grow for that yeah jesus

0:41:17 Eli: Friends turn out to be pedophiles. There's a whole bunch of stuff.

0:41:20 Thomas: What?

0:41:20 Eli: Hey, I'm speaking to my experience, Tom.

0:41:20 Tom: Christ jesus Christ Eli Bosnick

0:41:25 Eli: Have I not told you guys that I've had like three really close friends turn out to me?

0:41:28 Tom: No fuck

0:41:29 Thomas: I feel like we've heard about one of them.

0:41:30 Eli: Pedophiles, a hundred percent real thing. It's such a common refrain. It's to the point where when I tell people about it, they're like, again, Oh, for another day.

0:41:41 Thomas: Is this you just pre -empting that you're going to be in one of these email dumps?

0:41:48 Eli: Look, condemn Hamas right now. You can tell them right now, Thomas. How dare you? All right, gentlemen, before we go, Fun fact, Australia's biggest export is boomerangs. It's also their biggest import.

0:41:53 Tom: Man

0:41:54 Clip: DEAR OLD DAD

0:42:07 Tom: No no I was waiting for it fine

0:42:08 Thomas: Nice. I love that. That's a good one.

0:43:00 Thomas: I would have made a third nut loaf of Obama if I could.

0:43:03 Tom: Let's play your boring fucking game

0:43:07 Eli: I'm a psychopath.