Reprogramming Your Child’s Emotional Baseline

If your child's behavior feels like a constant system failure, you might be looking at the wrong data. Today on The Parent Tap, we are breaking down the architecture of emotional regulation.

I am joined by Dr. Gloria Vanderhorst, a licensed clinical psychologist with decades of experience and the author of Read, Reflect, Respond. Together, we trade the theoretical psychology for a rigid Standard Operating Procedure. We break down the exact ways society incorrectly programs young boys to suppress emotion, why "all behavior makes sense in its context," and how to implement a daily 15-Minute Connection Protocol to stabilize your family's baseline. If you want to raise emotionally healthy children who don't shut down under pressure, you need to hear this blueprint.

CONNECT WITH DR. GLORIA VANDERHORST:

• Website: https://drvanderhorst.com
• Book: Read, Reflect, Respond: The 3 R's of Growth and Change https://amzn.to/4sNuqqn

THE EPISODE BLUEPRINT (TIMESTAMPS): 00:00 - Cold Open: The Flaw in How We Program Young Boys 02:00 - Intro: Dr. Gloria Vanderhorst & The "3 R's" Framework 05:30 - The Emotional Suppression System in Children 11:00 - The Data: Why All Behavior Makes Sense in Its Context 16:45 - The Screen Time Displacement Effect 21:30 - Building the SOP: The 15-Minute Connection Protocol 26:00 - Triage: What to Do When a Child Emotionally Shuts Down 30:00 - How Parents Serve as the "Nervous System Regulator"

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Transcript

The Emotional Stunting of Boys

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Our boys, our males, come into the world with a broader range of emotional expression than females do. We start telling them, little boys don't cry. Think of that. Right? We let little girls cry. Little girls can cry and moan and complain. Little boys cannot.

Meet Dr. Gloria K. Vander Horst

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Today, my guest is Dr. Gloria K. Vanderhorst. She has spent 50 years as a psychologist. Her new book is called How Not to F Up Being a Father, which I gotta be honest, I love that title. It is a manual for raising boys without emotionally stunting them. Dr. Vanderhorst, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

I'm really excited to talk about this.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

Yeah, absolutely. So let's talk. Uh let's start with system failure. In your book, you say expecting men to provide emotional guidance without ever being taught how is a complete setup for failure.

Boys Are Born More Emotionally Expressive Than Girls

SPEAKER_00 1:13

It it is a setup for failure. All right. I will tell you kind of a little known fact, and that is that our boys, our males, come into the world with a broader range of emotional expression than females do. But by and large, child care at the infant stage is really done mainly by women, not by men. That trend is changing. There are many more men deciding to stay home and raise children while the wives go off to work. And in those households, I'm gonna bet that there's a significant difference in what happens

How Female Caregivers Unintentionally Shape Boys' Emotions

SPEAKER_00 1:59

for the boys. But in the majority of households, mother or a female caretaker is still raising and taking care of the infant. And so because boys naturally have a broader range of emotional expression, think about it in terms of an infant. That means the male infant is gonna have a more intense cry, right? Or a more intense sense of sadness or a more intense exuberance, right? He's gonna get excited in an upper range that mom or the female caretaker is not familiar with.

"Little Boys Don't Cry" — How Suppression Starts Early

SPEAKER_00 2:46

And so just normally and naturally, if someone that you're interfacing with, right, goes to an extreme, you're gonna have a reaction to it, you know. So mother's gonna go, uh, right, or make some kind of move that communicates to the infant, I don't get that, I don't like that, right? I don't understand that. Why are you doing that, right? Why are you so giddy and silly, or why are you so sad and irritated? And so when mother does that, infants are brilliant. They come into the world with reading the room around them as their survival mechanism. So when mother does that, they're brilliant very quickly. The little boy learns, oops, don't do that, right? Don't go high, don't go low, just kind of keep your emotions here in the range that mother is comfortable with. So that happens to infant males without any intent to change them or harm them. But then we put them on their feet, right? Little boys start to walk around. And guess what we do to them? We start telling them, little boys don't cry. Think of that, right? We let little girls cry. Little girls can cry and moan and complain. Little boys cannot.

The Long-Term Impact on Adult Relationships

SPEAKER_00 4:32

And that means that at that toddler age, the boy is trained to cut off access to you know half of the feeling range. Right? If I can't cry, if I can't be sad, that kind of means I can't be frustrated either, right? And I definitely could never be depressed. And so when you when you grow up under that system, you learn very quickly to limit the range of your emotional expression. And then when you become an adult, we do this turnaround. All right, suddenly you develop an intimate relationship with a woman or with a man, and we suddenly tell you that you should have tender feelings, right? You should access these feelings that are on the lower end of the range. You should be able to be sad, to be tender, right? Not possible, not possible. We have set you up for failure in terms of adult relationships, and honestly, the divorce rate supports that completely, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Oh my goodness, that was a deep answer. I love that. And you brought it back to you know, if we're not being raised that way, why would we expected to function that way as an adult? And that totally makes sense to me now. Wow, that is Yeah, right. That totally makes sense to me now, and I'm I'm glad you explained it in that manner. Um, my goodness, that was a great, great answer. Um,

Can Wives Help Their Husbands Open Up?

SPEAKER_01 6:28

all right, let's talk about the co-founder dynamic. If a dad realizes he has to do the work to rebuild his own emotional capacity, how does he communicate that to his spouse? So, how would my wife and I operate as united fronts so she doesn't feel like she has a third child? We have two two children right now, um, one in four at the moment. So, how does she act? And and so she doesn't feel like I'm an extra child.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

Yeah, that's that is a very great question. And and I want to set the stage for that first, and that is that um we have this cultural expectation that women have the capability of supporting their husband in exploring feeling states and that they're really interested in doing that, they're motivated to do that. But I think the truth of the matter is if you look at the divorce rate, women are not being successful at doing that, and there's a good reason for that, right?

Why Wives Struggle to Facilitate Emotional Tenderness

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Women do not have the skill set to facilitate tenderness in their husbands, but in fact, it's kind of scary for them if you come home from work and you're distressed about what has happened at work, right? Maybe this system of recording doesn't work, right? And you're irritated about it, you're sad about it, you can display irritation, right? Your wife will be interested in irritation, but if you start to display sadness, your wife is gonna try to placate you and shut that off. As a culture, we are not comfortable with men going into that range of feelings. Look at um, go to a funeral, right? Watch the number of men who have just lost someone very important to them, and they're working so hard not to cry. So you ask the question, what does a wife do? Right? A wife should first face the reality that what she says she wants, she wants you to open up, right? She wants you to disclose, she wants you to share the struggles that you're having. But honestly, when you start to do that, she gets uncomfortable. So, what the wife really needs to do is to face that reality and challenge herself to really take the time and put in the energy to encourage her husband to keep going, to keep talking. Uh, typically,

The "Headline" Communication Problem in Marriages

SPEAKER_00 9:51

the guy comes home, he's distressed about something, he gives a headline, all right. None of my equipment worked today, right? So I couldn't record anything, and I had all of these wonderful guests lined up. And now I have to reschedule everybody, all right? And she'll say, Oh, I'm so sorry. That sounds like a really bad day. All right. You gave a headline, she gives a headline in response, but she doesn't say, All right, sit down, I'm gonna get you a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, all right? And we're gonna talk about this. I want to know more of what that experience is like for you. She doesn't say that to her husband. If you were a female, that's exactly the direction she would move in, all right? If she's talking to a friend, she would say, Hold on, I want to hear more, right? Let's get a cup of tea, let's sit down and talk about this. And then they dive into a deeper conversation. Women are not trained to do that with their spouses. We've educated both the male and the female population that boys are not supposed to go into that soft emotional territory. And so they don't, and we don't help them get there. Although I will correct myself, all right, there are some groups spread throughout the United States that are male-driven and male-organized, and that is their purpose, to facilitate men learning that they do have access to the full range of emotion and helping them to, in group situations, take deeper dives into their own feeling states and to really learn how to share those deeper emotions with someone else. So there is a trend to educate the male population, but still kind of the common process is men don't get that opportunity to take a deeper dive into their feelings. And that needs to change moving forward.

My Personal Story: Crying Alone So My Wife Wouldn't See

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Yeah, I feel that personally. Um, it's a societal norm of you have to close down if you feel sad and kind of keep it to yourself. Like you mentioned, the funeral. Uh, recently just lost my dog for having him for 14 years, and I still cry. I'll be honest with you, I still cry, and I know it makes my wife uncomfortable. So I honestly do that more in solitary, away from her, away from the kids, because I don't want I I don't know. I just like you said that that is how it's set up for for men, and and because as boys we were taught that yeah, you you bottle that up, you know, like you're tough, you brush it off, make nothing bothers you, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:03

That whole dynamic of right, challenge your wife, challenge your wife to be present and comforting, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

That is a great ingredient. Oh my goodness, that'll benefit both of you. An amazing guest. Wow, thank you so much for that. I have a couple more uh questions here. So um, let's build the standard operating procedure. So if a dad is listening on his commute right now and realizes he has walled off his emotions, but desperately wants to raise an emotional competent son, what would step one be? And what is the very first daily habit he needs to implement?

Step 1 for Dads: Put Your Own Oxygen Mask On First

SPEAKER_00 13:41

Yeah, he has to open himself up, okay, right? He has to it, it is just like uh the advice on a plane, right? Put your mask on first and then take care of your child, right? Put your life jacket on first and then take care of your child. So you have to take care of yourself first. So do a deeper dive into your own emotions, all right. My journal book that I've written is made for that deeper dive. In fact, there are two of them at this point. The first one is read, reflect, respond, the three hours of growth and change. That book is designed for both men and women, but particularly for the male to learn how to take a deeper dive into emotions. The key to that is that there's an essay on one page and the facing page is blank. Typically, journals have lines expecting you to respond in words, but you have housed feeling states, particularly in the younger years, infancy, toddlerhood, preschool years,

Tools to Build Your Emotional Vocabulary

SPEAKER_00 15:04

not in terms of language. We represent the world in three ways. One is language, we represent in terms of action, and in terms of visual. And I tell people you could tear the page if you wanted to, if you had that intensity, but you'd have to tape it back together to read the essay on the other side, but still, right? You need to educate yourself first as a father, expand your own range of capability for having feelings, labeling them. My website has a list of feelings on it. Anybody can go there and download that list of feelings. I tell people put a copy in the kitchen, put one in the area where the family gathers for television or games or puzzles, and put one in the bedroom so that you have easy access. The wonderful thing about your brain is that it is aware of every feeling a human being is capable of having. You can't produce it, but you can recognize it. If you read through the list of feelings, your brain will automatically lock into the one, two, or three feeling states that you're experiencing in that moment. And in that way, you've expanded your own feeling vocabulary. So it's an easy way. So I encourage you to go there, download the feeling sheet and use it with your family. It'll make a huge difference.

Committing to Break the Cycle for My Son

SPEAKER_01 17:02

Absolutely. I I just I found your website as just such a wealth of knowledge. And um, you know, I was perusing it before this meeting uh and or this interview. And I, you know, I'm definitely gonna go back and and review that because you know, definitely want to be the the mod role model for my one-year-old son right now as he grows up and to know and not have these issues as he becomes, you know, a man and um, you know, kind of break the cycle of of what's going on here. Um

⚡ Lightning Round: Therapy Buzzwords

SPEAKER_01 17:30

it and for the last part of this, I always like to kind of end with like a lightning round, just kind of a quick response, like whatever's on the top of your head. Is that okay? Just a few questions just to kind of get your your pulse. Okay. Um so let's see here. All right, so question one What is the most overused therapy buzzword? That parents misuse. Sorry, I didn't finish the question that parents might misuse. Um I would say I have I absolutely have no clue.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

Doing therapy for 50 years, buzzwords are not in my wheelhouse.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

I guess, okay, so maybe maybe re let me re-direct that. Um is there like is there something you're seeing like more of a trend of with parents um misusing kind of like, or maybe just like in terms of how they're raising their, you know, your book talking about, you know, um boys in particular, like uh parents, like like the different ways parents raise their kids now versus, you know, you've been doing this a long time over the decades, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

⚡ Lightning Round: Modern Parenting vs. Free-Range Kids

SPEAKER_00 18:39

Yeah, definitely. Our children now are really overprogrammed and they are constantly into a device, even your one-year-old. I can't tell you the number of one-year-olds that I have seen that are focused on a device, right? They're missing the world around them because they're focused on their device.

SPEAKER_01 19:07

Awesome. Yeah, no, totally get that. Um, I appreciate that response. Uh, thinking back to the 90s era of parenting. So when I was, you know, kind of a child, what is one thing that that generation of parents got right that you're seeing now in, you know, maybe uh people my age now that that are kind of like um they're grown, and you know, what what do you think they their parents their parents got right with the parenting?

SPEAKER_00 19:31

Yeah, I would call what they got right was free range, right? They let their kids go out into the neighborhood, ride their bikes, explore with friends, but nowadays we we had a a family um in the neighboring town that gave their kids permission to do that, right? To walk to the uh coffee shop or the place where there were shops available to walk to school. And the police picked up their kids, brought them home, and told the parents that their kids should not be out walking around the town, right? These are, you know, middle school and elementary school age kids, perfectly capable of getting on their bikes like you were able to do, and you know, riding all over the neighborhood. We don't let kids do that. We program them, and they are busy constantly as soon as they're awake. They're busy.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

Absolutely, they don't get any down. Yeah, absolutely.

⚡ Lightning Round: Toddler Meltdowns in Public

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Totally get it's a totally different world, like you said, growing up in that era of being riding bikes, playing basket, playing sports in the front yard, you know, kind of just going and leaving at at your leisure, you know, knowing to come back when it gets dark. And now you don't play rarely, right? Yeah, you rarely see kids playing outside, and it's just it's weird. It's it's a weird world that we're kind of I'm raising kids in now, it seems like it's so different from when I was a child. Um, if a toddler is having uh last question here, if a toddler is having a full blown down, like a full-blown meltdown in public, just for full disclosure, I have a a child with autism, she's four. So meltdowns are you never know, they could happen at any time. What's the what's your uh best uh one-word mantra for dads? Like what would you say would be like the best way to sort of approach the meltdown to keep them?

SPEAKER_00 21:44

Yeah, I would say, you know, stop, get down on that child's level, even if that means you know, you're in the middle of the grocery store, right? Sit down on the floor so that that child knows that you're present. And that you're available and that you're accepting. All right. You're not going to be able to stop that. So I wouldn't make very strong efforts to stop it. It will run its course. Even a child is having a tantrum, it will run its course. Your job is safety. All right. I don't want them crashing into shelves. I don't want them doing any kind of self-harm. Your job is safety, is to provide the physical safety that that child needs. And by providing physical safety, you also are providing emotional boundaries.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

Love that. Love that. Definitely don't want to diffuse it as best you can and not to pour more fuel into the fire. Because I realize when my my daughter's having a meltdown, I can make it worse. Like we can, you know, there's action. Like they if we react poorly to that, it it grows and it gets more intense.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

And so and if if you're embarrassed by that, right, children read your emotions. They're brilliant at it. So if you're embarrassed or you're ashamed in response to that, right? But if you can comfortably just kind of get down on her level, and I really mean it, sit down on the floor, provide safety for her until it runs its course. And it will be shorter if you do that.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

Absolutely. That's

⚡ Lightning Round: The Daily Habit for a Strong Marriage

SPEAKER_01 23:28

great. And one last question I did buy, uh, if that's okay. What is the best? And you talked about marriage and the divorce rates. And so I have to ask this. What is the best five-minute habit? Um, you know, parents can can do to keep a marriage strong while raising kids, while going through the the chaos and you know, the the high stress. We talked about meltdowns and all of that that comes with parenting. What do you think would keep what's your advice for keeping a marriage strong in 2026?

SPEAKER_00 23:56

Yeah, you have to you have to find time to connect, even if that's 15 minutes, right? So maybe it's 15 minutes in the morning before you get everybody up and dressed and going. Maybe it's 15 minutes after dinner, maybe it's 15 minutes after the kids have gone to bed, but it's 15 minutes facing each other and just talking, not problem solving, not scheduling, all right, not getting into conflicts, but you know, sharing, you know, I saw a red bird out the window this morning, all right? Just sharing your experience of the day so that you take time to connect every day. And many parents just miss connection completely. They're so busy with responsibility, whether it's work or parenting, that they give up connection and they haven't talked to each other for weeks, right? Except to do the logistics of the family. But you want to maintain a relationship, you have to talk with your partner.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

Yeah,

Why Every Couples Therapist Says the Same Thing

SPEAKER_01 25:11

I love that. Our actually, our licensed um therapist, uh marriage therapist. Um, she said the same thing. I guess it would be our couples therapist, but she said the exact same thing recently to us. So that's very it's just that reinforcement and reminder that like communication really is key and you have to keep it up because it's easy to let it go in in the midst of how busy life gets for everybody, right?

unknown 25:36

Right.

SPEAKER_01 25:37

And like you said, even those small things, though I saw that that beautiful red robin outside my window or whatever. Like, yeah, yeah, but that's such a great, uh, a great interdote. I love, I love that. This has been such a great interview. Um, is there anything, and I'm obviously gonna let my viewers know how to find your books and your website and all the resources you have to provide, but is there anything else you wanted to mention before before we end this interview?

Final Word: Take Your Emotional Health Seriously

SPEAKER_00 26:04

Uh I would just encourage everyone to take themselves seriously, right? Really be interested in your emotional side, not just your physical side. All right. Lots of people are going to dunes, going to Pilates, taking really good care of their bodies. You have to take really good care of your brain and your relationships. So care about what's happening emotionally.