Naval Ravikant and Aaron Stupple — How to Raise a Sovereign Child, A Freedom-Maximizing Approach to Parenting (#788)

Excellent podcast. I unknowingly have practiced this form of parenting and both of my sons one a teen and the other is an adult are very responsible empathetic young men. My son’s pet cat has also been raised with a lot of freedom and she is also exceptionally well behaved

As a fellow Tim, I also try to keep an open mind. However this episode is one of bottom ones – the theories are of a privileged 1% class of self-appointed geniuses. Naval – perhaps genius in high tech and making money and “Dr.” Stupple – father of 4 or 5 kids who have not even touch teenagerhood. As a father of 5 who do have kids living into adulthood, I can only say kids do want direction, guidelines and even rules to manage their lives. Not only for their sake, but for your own sake. U don’t want them be 100% addicted to video games or bad friends and skipping out on a career to be self-supporting. Many of us don’t have the Naval millionaire / billionaire status to support their kids thru every mistake.

Let’s see how this episode holds up (or not) in 10 or 20 years… but I applaud your bravery in posting. I’m also deeply disappointed in Naval on his child raising ideas – these are not investment companies where if it fails, it’s ok. If the kids hit drugs, bad influences and simply don’t have a career, u will be holding the bag with endless stress till you die. I say this because I’ve seen it in the family. My poor mom – never a moment of peace. Now it really makes me doubt Naval’s his high-tech analysis or is it an Elon-gift to talk investors and Wall Street ? Sorry, I want back my time in listening to these 2 “experts” and I applaud u for being the skeptic in the room. Just my 2 cents.

I haven’t listened yet, but I’m curious. I think this type of parenting could work well for some and not others. My parents were massively controlling of me – I’m smart, sensitive, and disciplined already, and their input nearly destroyed my life. I ran away at age 15, only to end up finding a teacher that directed me to Harvard (full scholarship) and moving in with a friend whose mother was never home. While my friend partied and had parties, I stayed in my room and studied biology. It was a gift to not have an overbearing parent around.

My sister on the other hand, never received rules or discipline from my parents. They let her do what she wanted, and she went off the rails. Alcohol addiction at age 14, cocaine addiction at age 19.

Some children need limits (like my sister), others need to be left alone (like me).

I liked Tim’s sceptical questions and I think he really did a good job with navigating this controversial conversation. But what worries me is that with this conversation the Tim Ferriss show joins the ranks of media content, that publishes almost anything just to whip up emotions and get more exposure. I hope this was just a blip of that, and that the show is not going down that road.
The guest in this podcast surprises me that he would risk altering the children’s gut bacteria, oral and general health, mess with the dopamine cycle, just to make a point in his parenting philosophy. Even though we might not have scientific proof for all the damage that could be done, I personally would still like to be on the safe side with kids. I think it’s better to save them from potentially irreversible changes that can be easily avoided.

Thank you Tim for experimenting with this one and posting. I liked the way you tried to push back to avoid the “1 or 0” extremism the 2 were getting into with wording. Did you feel like you held back on your questioning?

Those two were embodying what you mentioned a lot about being a public persona/influencer: “becoming a caricature and going more and more extreme into statements to feed what brings them attention”.

Here are more questions / remarks:

• What was Naval’s or Aaron’s childhood like? They seem to paint everything in a binary way.
• How did their parents parent them?
• What did they appreciate about their parents way of raising them?
• Did they get bullied at school as kids?
• So they are at peace to leave YouTube/Apps teach their kids for 8 hours a day what they should want and be interested in in life? They are millions of channels on YT, most for profit not for benefit of the kid viewing.
• Schools is managed by the government (voted by the community we live in) and has a goal to “educate” kids NOT FOR PROFIT. IPADS/YOUTUBE/APPS are all FOR PROFIT directed by companies whose underlying goal is profit for investors through keeping one’s attention. How do they think about this?
• Naval says he can’t control his eating or screen time so why help set boundaries for his kid? So because Naval cannot bring mindfulness to his actions, he decides he won’t help his kid learn safe boundaries? Not surprising though – hard to preach what you don’t live by.
• What kind of involvement do they have in daily life preparation? Setting the table, preparing food, cleaning dishes, cleaning house etc? If none, it sounds like kids live in a hotel. What about the importance of contributing to one own’s community ? What about building the awareness and gratitude for how they are able to live?

• Last: Tim you’re known to bring world experts and deep dive, here neither are experts. They have kids and none of them are old enough to have a full parenting cycle to look back on. A bit surprising you shared if I’m honest.

It seems to me that the two need to dive into deep personal work and heal their childhood wounds to find a balance to what they preach. It seems that so much comes down to their own fears of not being loved by their kids !
Much love.

probably the most thought provoking and potentially controversial episode…. and still didnt understand what I have to do when my kids want to eat Nutella instead of vegetables. Using the sunscreen example: should I wait 20years so they grasp the side effects when it’s too late?

Hi Tim,

Long-time reader and listener here.

This was one of the most thought-provoking episodes in a while—maybe because I’m a dad and the topic resonates with me, but also because of the “extreme” or fringe philosophy presented. I understand why some might be put off or confused, and while I don’t agree with most of Aaron’s views, they made me think and reflect deeply, which I truly appreciate. That’s what makes an episode stand out.

I’d much rather hear something that challenges my thinking than another repeat guest (not that I don’t enjoy Seth or Greg, but we’ve already heard the essence of their insights in past episodes). So, for what it’s worth, I’d love to hear more of these “controversial” discussions!

Best,
Dee B.

Tim, you were looking for evidence of this style of parenting working. There should be plenty. There was a trend in the 1960’s & 70 called non-authoritarian parenting that resembles taking children seriously.

I spoke to my parents (both 40+ years of experience in education) and raised three kids. Apparently it was incredibly difficult to be around the kids raised in such households.

My father contrasted a lax Dutch approach with the strict French approach which wouldn’t shy away from a whack on the ears). Phrases “tu te tais” or “remain silent” with a very stern look were clearly meant to be Intimidating. Say what you will about that, but these children were able to sit stilll in a restaurant for two hours, whereas Dutch children with considerably more freedom were often hard to deal with (spoiled) screaming and running around. Yes more childlike, but definitely not as easy to work with.

This obviously is anecdotal evidence and it is harder to verify to what extent these parents not only applied “the removing rules” but also “being a guide/creative problem solving ander understanding” part.

Also my Father defended the mandatory public schooling by saying often times the brightest children could fare well without support and more freedom, but giving maximal freedom to children who were not doing so well by school standards would often lead to even further backsliding. This is seen in more areas, for example in making quarterly conversations with the parents optional those who most needed to show up, often didn’t. Ofcourse if one were to let go of exams, perhaps the benchmarks lid shift. In fact some European countries don’t have exams, but only entry tests for university, which in essence makings exams opt-in versus non-negotiable.

He made the point that there isn’t a one size fits all approach. He acknowledged that there are definitely problems with the current system (and he didn’t reject a factory farming analogy), but for better or worse it more or less works.

I wouldn’t be the first one to massively dislike the school system, but a few years later ending up being very grateful for having been forced to learn French, when I found out through and exchange that I really like language learning.

After the conversation I thought: perhaps there are ways to create more freedom within constraints within the current education system. Perhaps not every kid should be able to dodge the school systems altogether and perhaps not every parent is ready to be a guide.

Perhaps thoughtful action is best directed at the teacher/ and parent level.

As I heard Jacob Collier say it best in relation to music, but It applies equally to teaching:

the thing that is right for you will meet you where you are, and modulate you slightly away to somewhere else in an interesting way

Such an interesting take on parenting i have never been exposed to before and the total opposite of how i was raised!! Why? Because i said so was my dad’s reasoning, which never made any sense to me. I understand children under the age of 7 are just downloading the programme of how to be a human, they don’t have the full use of the pre-frontal cortex which is still developing. I have met some god-awful free range children of hippy parents and this was my knee jerk reaction in the begining, but listening on i was fascinated. Thank you so much for making me think and giving me such interesting interviews!! xx

Hey Tim,
I actually enjoyed this episode because it made me feel less alone. My kid has ADHD and is a “learn it the hard way” kind of person. We’ve had to adopt a philosophy similar this because she pushes back on every request we make of her.

I keep hearing the friends you interview tell you about how happy they are and how great parenting is and that you need to jump on board. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to reach out to friends who are struggling as parents because sometimes you get a really hard kid. And, they’ll break you in ways you never could have expected. Your heart will break because of how hard things are for them and your heart will break because of how hard you try to support them. You try everything every expert tells you to do and nothing works. They’ll challenge your relationships in ways you never could have imagined. Most days are hard.

I don’t know if you have friends experiencing this. We often drop out of social circles because it’s too painful to be around our friends who think they can relate, but can’t. As part of educating yourself on parenting, I encourage you to seek them out.