[Applause]
as the society we have got a confusing
relationship with the idea of rebels and
rebellion so close to home if we have a
rebel sitting in front of us in our
living room I think it’s probably fair
to say that we struggle we find it
challenging and yet we love stories
about rebels we love their conviction
will have their courage we love how
they’re so willing to stand firm and
strong and steadfast in the face of so
much opposition you know the whole world
can be against and their communities can
turn against them their friends can
desert them even families can turn
against these rebels and yet they stand
firm unflinching unmoving and they’re
doing credible things I think that we
love the idea of rebels so much because
sometimes we’ve heard the end from the
beginning
we know how it turns out and so we know
we can love them because of what they
did going through it might have been
different but you know we make movies
about rebels we write books about rebels
and their stories become part of
folklore well my wife and I are the
parents of six children I know I get
that response to lightest 2017 we have
six kids I look like a rebel don’t I by
when I walked out you thought yeah rebel
he looks like trouble and if you if you
pay attention you’ll note that those six
children are all girls
I know yeah not sure how we did that but
we’re delighted and we are absolutely
crazy about them like most parents
usually usually are about their children
because we have six daughters we
recently bought a book that’s been quite
popular lately about raising rebel girls
because we want our girls to be who they
want to be to be what they want to be
but from time to time we find ourselves
in that same conflicted position when
we’re sitting in our living room
opposite a living breathing rebel
sitting on the couch opposite us
thinking for herself independently and
we have three teenagers right now and
another three to come so in spite of
that conflict and challenge the idea
that I really want to live with you
today is this we need more rebels
we need to raise more children who are
willing to think for themselves rather
than bowing down to the God of popular
opinion and getting swept up in that
current that sweeps them and all of
their friends down the path of least
resistance now in in the interest of
empathy I know that some of you in this
room have children who have rebelled and
and it has not given you cause to
celebrate rather your hearts have broken
you’ve lost sleep and going through
torment and challenging pain so I want
to describe exactly what I mean when I
say we need to raise more rebels because
there are two kinds of rebels there is
the reflexive rebel now this is the
typical teenage rebel without a cause
this is what most of us have been at
some point in our lives of course most
of us would just that for a very short
period of her lives but this is the you
can’t tell me what to do it’s my life
I’ll do what I want kind of rebel this
is the it doesn’t matter what you say I
insist on my right to run my knuckles
down the cheese grater about all life
kind of rebel and and and I don’t know
if you’ve noticed this but when our
children start to reflexively rebel what
do we do we’ve become more controlling
we say no no no I’m in charge here and
our force creates resistance our
authoritarian ism actually creates
reflexive rebellion and in some cases
the cheese grater isn’t enough and they
start sprinting for the airplane
propeller of the adult world and what
happens is we create this foundation of
ruptured relationships and a mutual lack
of respect there’s just this focus on
self rather than other and there’s an
awful lot of anger and pain for us as
parents and for our children now we
could talk about reflexive rebels for a
long time but I want to talk about the
second kind of rebel that is much more
interesting to me and much more unusual
and that’s what I call the reflective
rebel a reflective rebel is what I think
that we need to be encouraging our
children to be I understand the irony by
the
Way of saying well this is how you’re
going to rebel because if you tell a
rebel how to rebuild they’ll of course
go exactly the opposite way because
force creates resistance but a
reflective rebel thinks for themselves
independently they think wisely it’s
it’s almost like they don’t get caught
up in the anger that a reflexive rebel
possesses that leads to unwise unhelpful
thinking the late author home you’re not
described raising children who are
strong and caring strong independent
willing to think for themselves but
caring they have that empathy so that
their strength and independence doesn’t
override and trample on others in fact a
reflective rebel chafes and bristles
when they sense inequality or
intolerance or unkindness or unfairness
but instead of saying well let’s torch
the house and going off half-cocked they
pause they strategize they plan for how
they might make change the last for more
than just a moment and then they grab
the sledgehammer and they start knocking
out walls and building new rooms to make
the house bigger and better for
everybody so today I want to share with
you a story about a reflective rebel
before I share the story I need to make
a confession
I created this reflective rebel by doing
something that in hindsight I shouldn’t
have done so three things before we dive
into the story number one I shouldn’t
have done what I did number two I’ve
learned from it and I’ll never do it
again and number three I just know that
somebody’s gonna hear this story and say
now there’s an idea don’t do it it’s
unethical and I made a mistake please
learn from my mistake inand just don’t
go there so nowadays I I mainly give
talks for living in write books and I
speak to adults about well-being and
relationships and parenting but some
years ago I used to give talks to a lot
of kids and an organization contacted me
one day and they said hey we want you to
come in and do a day’s worth of speaking
we’ve got about 1,200 kids we’re gonna
divide them into six groups and we’ll
send them to you 200 a time do one
session six times with each group
they’re all aged between 14 and 18
here’s the brief
helped them to make good decisions and
stop bowing down to peer pressure easy
no problem
so as I was thinking about how to get 14
to 18 year olds to not be reflexive
rebels to be reflective rebels and I
remembered the Milgram experiment from
the 1960s if you know the Milgram
experiment you know why I’m saying don’t
try this at home but if you don’t let me
give you a quick bit of background
Stanley Milgram did this experiment that
has become a psychology classic and in
the experiment he is the experimenter
you walk in to participate in the
experiment or I do people just like us
and you meet the other participant in
the experiment Milgram explains one of
you will be the teacher the other will
be the learner now we don’t have time to
go into this in detail so I’ll explain
it very briefly it’s rigged you are
always going to be the teacher and the
other person is always going to be the
learner why because they’re friends
he’s a Confederate it’s set up that way
and essentially Milgram explains that
this is a study of memory and learning
and we want to see how punishment
affects people’s memory and learning so
you watch as the learner goes into
another room and is strapped into an
electric chair and then you sit down in
front of a bench with a whole lot of
buttons on it that represent the
different voltage that you’re going to
administer to the learner when they get
your questions wrong you start
administering the punishment the line
starts protesting you say to Milgram we
can’t do this and the experimenter says
the experiment requires that you
continue please continue about halfway
through the protests are so loud that
you beg to stop but he says please
continue a short while later the person
stops responding they’re unconscious or
worse
and yet Milgram found that even after
that 65% of participants went all the
way to the end even after there was no
more response now obviously it would be
unethical for me to give electric shocks
to kids
I didn’t do that but I decided to run a
modified version of this experiment
because it’s such a great object lesson
I know I know I know so here’s what I
did the first group of 200 kids came in
and I called for two volunteers as they
came forward I picked a couple at random
they came for they stood there all
excited because I love volunteering and
you know they’re fun kids and I said to
one of them you’re going to be the
teacher
here are five trivia questions you ask
the learner these five trivia questions
you’re going to be the learner
here are some elastic bands put them
around your wrist every time you get a
question wrong you get this short sharp
punishment for not knowing the answer
five trivia questions five potential
punishments make sense and the teacher
is the one who’s administering the
punishment much more ethical like I said
never again anyway the first experiment
went off without a hitch
they just followed my instructions to
the letter no questioning just did it
second experiment likewise third group
that came through and I’m starting to
wonder if this is such a good idea
the kids come forward that I’ve selected
teacher learner and I said hello and the
kid who’s the teacher is like six foot
two and 120 kilos he’s huge and the
learner is five foot nothing in 40 kilos
she’s tiny he asked the first question
she has no idea of the answer he reaches
out he picks up her wrist
he pulls these elastic bands back and
just before he lets go he flinches cuz
she knows what’s coming and in that
instant he pauses and then ever so
slowly
he places the elastic bands gently on
her wrist and he steps back and then he
put his head down and quite humbly and
out of this sort of out of the corner of
his mouth he said I don’t want to do
that it doesn’t seem right I know her is
thought I was thinking yes
but of course I couldn’t say that so I
channeled my inner Milgram and I said
the experiment requires that you
continue please go on talk about
pressure and this kid he was amazing he
had this inner wrestle for a moment and
then he seemed to stand a little taller
and he was already up there and he said
no she just doesn’t know the answer why
would I hurt her for it I wanted to hug
you me but I couldn’t because that would
blow the experiment and so I said look
I’m with you for the next 60 minutes if
you don’t do this I’ve got nothing to
say to you all these 200 people we need
you to do this please the experiment
requires that you continue please
continue and as I said it the crowd
started to jeer
some of the kids said I said come on man
just do it you’re wrecking everything
stop messing it up just do it a couple
of kids like I’ll do it know who sure
don’t and then he began to walk to his
chair now I convinced him to come back
he didn’t want to I I said come back and
as we need to talk about this I asked
the entire crowd to please give him a
round of applause I said what what has
just happened is special and it’s
unusual
his name was tank him he was like 14 or
15 years old and what he displayed that
day was what I call reflective rebellion
he was willing to stand firm and
resolute in what he knew was right even
though no one else was with him it was
exceptional I think that what yankem
demonstrated is the end game for all of
us and for our children and if we don’t
have kids the young people that we work
with or that we teach or the related to
us for them to understand what Augustine
of Hippo meant when he said right is
right even if no one is doing it wrong
is wrong even if everyone is doing it I
don’t know if you’ve noticed this or not
but most people say well I want to raise
children who are strong and independent
and caring and courageous and yet how
many of us and it doesn’t just
to happen in our homes by the way this
can happen at work and it doesn’t even
have to be with kids it can be with
adults or in our classrooms how many of
us use phrases like just do as I say
because they’re the rules that’s why
because that’s the company policy we’ve
just that’s what we do because that’s
how we do it in this school in this
classroom in our home because I said so
you see we say that we want to raise
independent thinkers but what we really
want to raise is conformists because
independence is inconvenient data from
around the world tells us that from
toddlers to teens and even for adults we
create reflective Rebels not by force
because force creates resistance rather
we create reflective rebels by giving
people space to think to work things out
I asked one dad how did you create your
reflective rebels he was amazing he said
I give my kids hypotheticals we’ll be in
the car I’ll say well what do you think
about this what what would you do if you
were in that situation how would you
respond what about if it was like this
and then he shared with me ideas about
what his kids had done reflectively as a
result you see when we use phrases like
this what we’re essentially saying is
I’ll only love you or if it’s not at
home
I’ll only treat you well when you behave
the way that I want you to it’s the
essence of conditionality and it doesn’t
create the reflective rebellion the
independent for the strong caring
individuals that matter most well we
should finish the story of Tianjin
because more happened that day Iran the
session three more times two volunteers
came up they followed the script
perfectly no one question and nobody
rebelled they just heard each other
quite willingly but at the end of the
final session of the day as everybody
was walking out of the room this one
young man came up to me he was about 17
or 18 he was a little bit bigger than
tea on him he looks just like him and he
started asking me questions about 10
come on like man how many kids do you
know called yankem it’s not a common
name he said that’s my little brother I
can’t wait to go home and
my parents what my little brother did
today
we gulp and quiver at the idea of
raising a rebel in our living room
but what parent wouldn’t want that for
their children to raise children who are
strong and caring and reflective and who
are willing to think about others and do
what they know is right I can’t help but
think that that night tiang comes
parents celebrated their courageous
strong independent reflective rebel
sitting right there opposite them on a
lounge chair in their living room thank
you
[Applause]
as the society we have got a confusing
relationship with the idea of rebels and
rebellion so close to home if we have a
rebel sitting in front of us in our
living room I think it’s probably fair
to say that we struggle we find it
challenging and yet we love stories
about rebels we love their conviction
will have their courage we love how
they’re so willing to stand firm and
strong and steadfast in the face of so
much opposition you know the whole world
can be against and their communities can
turn against them their friends can
desert them even families can turn
against these rebels and yet they stand
firm unflinching unmoving and they’re
doing credible things I think that we
love the idea of rebels so much because
sometimes we’ve heard the end from the
beginning
we know how it turns out and so we know
we can love them because of what they
did going through it might have been
different but you know we make movies
about rebels we write books about rebels
and their stories become part of
folklore well my wife and I are the
parents of six children I know I get
that response to lightest 2017 we have
six kids I look like a rebel don’t I by
when I walked out you thought yeah rebel
he looks like trouble and if you if you
pay attention you’ll note that those six
children are all girls
I know yeah not sure how we did that but
we’re delighted and we are absolutely
crazy about them like most parents
usually usually are about their children
because we have six daughters we
recently bought a book that’s been quite
popular lately about raising rebel girls
because we want our girls to be who they
want to be to be what they want to be
but from time to time we find ourselves
in that same conflicted position when
we’re sitting in our living room
opposite a living breathing rebel
sitting on the couch opposite us
thinking for herself independently and
we have three teenagers right now and
another three to come so in spite of
that conflict and challenge the idea
that I really want to live with you
today is this we need more rebels
we need to raise more children who are
willing to think for themselves rather
than bowing down to the God of popular
opinion and getting swept up in that
current that sweeps them and all of
their friends down the path of least
resistance now in in the interest of
empathy I know that some of you in this
room have children who have rebelled and
and it has not given you cause to
celebrate rather your hearts have broken
you’ve lost sleep and going through
torment and challenging pain so I want
to describe exactly what I mean when I
say we need to raise more rebels because
there are two kinds of rebels there is
the reflexive rebel now this is the
typical teenage rebel without a cause
this is what most of us have been at
some point in our lives of course most
of us would just that for a very short
period of her lives but this is the you
can’t tell me what to do it’s my life
I’ll do what I want kind of rebel this
is the it doesn’t matter what you say I
insist on my right to run my knuckles
down the cheese grater about all life
kind of rebel and and and I don’t know
if you’ve noticed this but when our
children start to reflexively rebel what
do we do we’ve become more controlling
we say no no no I’m in charge here and
our force creates resistance our
authoritarian ism actually creates
reflexive rebellion and in some cases
the cheese grater isn’t enough and they
start sprinting for the airplane
propeller of the adult world and what
happens is we create this foundation of
ruptured relationships and a mutual lack
of respect there’s just this focus on
self rather than other and there’s an
awful lot of anger and pain for us as
parents and for our children now we
could talk about reflexive rebels for a
long time but I want to talk about the
second kind of rebel that is much more
interesting to me and much more unusual
and that’s what I call the reflective
rebel a reflective rebel is what I think
that we need to be encouraging our
children to be I understand the irony by
the
Way of saying well this is how you’re
going to rebel because if you tell a
rebel how to rebuild they’ll of course
go exactly the opposite way because
force creates resistance but a
reflective rebel thinks for themselves
independently they think wisely it’s
it’s almost like they don’t get caught
up in the anger that a reflexive rebel
possesses that leads to unwise unhelpful
thinking the late author home you’re not
described raising children who are
strong and caring strong independent
willing to think for themselves but
caring they have that empathy so that
their strength and independence doesn’t
override and trample on others in fact a
reflective rebel chafes and bristles
when they sense inequality or
intolerance or unkindness or unfairness
but instead of saying well let’s torch
the house and going off half-cocked they
pause they strategize they plan for how
they might make change the last for more
than just a moment and then they grab
the sledgehammer and they start knocking
out walls and building new rooms to make
the house bigger and better for
everybody so today I want to share with
you a story about a reflective rebel
before I share the story I need to make
a confession
I created this reflective rebel by doing
something that in hindsight I shouldn’t
have done so three things before we dive
into the story number one I shouldn’t
have done what I did number two I’ve
learned from it and I’ll never do it
again and number three I just know that
somebody’s gonna hear this story and say
now there’s an idea don’t do it it’s
unethical and I made a mistake please
learn from my mistake inand just don’t
go there so nowadays I I mainly give
talks for living in write books and I
speak to adults about well-being and
relationships and parenting but some
years ago I used to give talks to a lot
of kids and an organization contacted me
one day and they said hey we want you to
come in and do a day’s worth of speaking
we’ve got about 1,200 kids we’re gonna
divide them into six groups and we’ll
send them to you 200 a time do one
session six times with each group
they’re all aged between 14 and 18
here’s the brief
helped them to make good decisions and
stop bowing down to peer pressure easy
no problem
so as I was thinking about how to get 14
to 18 year olds to not be reflexive
rebels to be reflective rebels and I
remembered the Milgram experiment from
the 1960s if you know the Milgram
experiment you know why I’m saying don’t
try this at home but if you don’t let me
give you a quick bit of background
Stanley Milgram did this experiment that
has become a psychology classic and in
the experiment he is the experimenter
you walk in to participate in the
experiment or I do people just like us
and you meet the other participant in
the experiment Milgram explains one of
you will be the teacher the other will
be the learner now we don’t have time to
go into this in detail so I’ll explain
it very briefly it’s rigged you are
always going to be the teacher and the
other person is always going to be the
learner why because they’re friends
he’s a Confederate it’s set up that way
and essentially Milgram explains that
this is a study of memory and learning
and we want to see how punishment
affects people’s memory and learning so
you watch as the learner goes into
another room and is strapped into an
electric chair and then you sit down in
front of a bench with a whole lot of
buttons on it that represent the
different voltage that you’re going to
administer to the learner when they get
your questions wrong you start
administering the punishment the line
starts protesting you say to Milgram we
can’t do this and the experimenter says
the experiment requires that you
continue please continue about halfway
through the protests are so loud that
you beg to stop but he says please
continue a short while later the person
stops responding they’re unconscious or
worse
and yet Milgram found that even after
that 65% of participants went all the
way to the end even after there was no
more response now obviously it would be
unethical for me to give electric shocks
to kids
I didn’t do that but I decided to run a
modified version of this experiment
because it’s such a great object lesson
I know I know I know so here’s what I
did the first group of 200 kids came in
and I called for two volunteers as they
came forward I picked a couple at random
they came for they stood there all
excited because I love volunteering and
you know they’re fun kids and I said to
one of them you’re going to be the
teacher
here are five trivia questions you ask
the learner these five trivia questions
you’re going to be the learner
here are some elastic bands put them
around your wrist every time you get a
question wrong you get this short sharp
punishment for not knowing the answer
five trivia questions five potential
punishments make sense and the teacher
is the one who’s administering the
punishment much more ethical like I said
never again anyway the first experiment
went off without a hitch
they just followed my instructions to
the letter no questioning just did it
second experiment likewise third group
that came through and I’m starting to
wonder if this is such a good idea
the kids come forward that I’ve selected
teacher learner and I said hello and the
kid who’s the teacher is like six foot
two and 120 kilos he’s huge and the
learner is five foot nothing in 40 kilos
she’s tiny he asked the first question
she has no idea of the answer he reaches
out he picks up her wrist
he pulls these elastic bands back and
just before he lets go he flinches cuz
she knows what’s coming and in that
instant he pauses and then ever so
slowly
he places the elastic bands gently on
her wrist and he steps back and then he
put his head down and quite humbly and
out of this sort of out of the corner of
his mouth he said I don’t want to do
that it doesn’t seem right I know her is
thought I was thinking yes
but of course I couldn’t say that so I
channeled my inner Milgram and I said
the experiment requires that you
continue please go on talk about
pressure and this kid he was amazing he
had this inner wrestle for a moment and
then he seemed to stand a little taller
and he was already up there and he said
no she just doesn’t know the answer why
would I hurt her for it I wanted to hug
you me but I couldn’t because that would
blow the experiment and so I said look
I’m with you for the next 60 minutes if
you don’t do this I’ve got nothing to
say to you all these 200 people we need
you to do this please the experiment
requires that you continue please
continue and as I said it the crowd
started to jeer
some of the kids said I said come on man
just do it you’re wrecking everything
stop messing it up just do it a couple
of kids like I’ll do it know who sure
don’t and then he began to walk to his
chair now I convinced him to come back
he didn’t want to I I said come back and
as we need to talk about this I asked
the entire crowd to please give him a
round of applause I said what what has
just happened is special and it’s
unusual
his name was tank him he was like 14 or
15 years old and what he displayed that
day was what I call reflective rebellion
he was willing to stand firm and
resolute in what he knew was right even
though no one else was with him it was
exceptional I think that what yankem
demonstrated is the end game for all of
us and for our children and if we don’t
have kids the young people that we work
with or that we teach or the related to
us for them to understand what Augustine
of Hippo meant when he said right is
right even if no one is doing it wrong
is wrong even if everyone is doing it I
don’t know if you’ve noticed this or not
but most people say well I want to raise
children who are strong and independent
and caring and courageous and yet how
many of us and it doesn’t just
to happen in our homes by the way this
can happen at work and it doesn’t even
have to be with kids it can be with
adults or in our classrooms how many of
us use phrases like just do as I say
because they’re the rules that’s why
because that’s the company policy we’ve
just that’s what we do because that’s
how we do it in this school in this
classroom in our home because I said so
you see we say that we want to raise
independent thinkers but what we really
want to raise is conformists because
independence is inconvenient data from
around the world tells us that from
toddlers to teens and even for adults we
create reflective Rebels not by force
because force creates resistance rather
we create reflective rebels by giving
people space to think to work things out
I asked one dad how did you create your
reflective rebels he was amazing he said
I give my kids hypotheticals we’ll be in
the car I’ll say well what do you think
about this what what would you do if you
were in that situation how would you
respond what about if it was like this
and then he shared with me ideas about
what his kids had done reflectively as a
result you see when we use phrases like
this what we’re essentially saying is
I’ll only love you or if it’s not at
home
I’ll only treat you well when you behave
the way that I want you to it’s the
essence of conditionality and it doesn’t
create the reflective rebellion the
independent for the strong caring
individuals that matter most well we
should finish the story of Tianjin
because more happened that day Iran the
session three more times two volunteers
came up they followed the script
perfectly no one question and nobody
rebelled they just heard each other
quite willingly but at the end of the
final session of the day as everybody
was walking out of the room this one
young man came up to me he was about 17
or 18 he was a little bit bigger than
tea on him he looks just like him and he
started asking me questions about 10
come on like man how many kids do you
know called yankem it’s not a common
name he said that’s my little brother I
can’t wait to go home and
my parents what my little brother did
today
we gulp and quiver at the idea of
raising a rebel in our living room
but what parent wouldn’t want that for
their children to raise children who are
strong and caring and reflective and who
are willing to think about others and do
what they know is right I can’t help but
think that that night tiang comes
parents celebrated their courageous
strong independent reflective rebel
sitting right there opposite them on a
lounge chair in their living room thank
you
[Applause]
Please follow and like us: