Episode 1 with Dr. Ryan Smith - Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist

Dr. Ryan Smith is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Supervisor and Licensed Professional Counselor. He currently serves as the President of the Texas Association of Marriage and Family Counselors. He attended Abilene Christian University for his undergraduate work and received both his Master’s degree and Ph.D. in Counseling from Texas A&M University-Commerce.

In this episode, Dr. Smith discusses the importance for parents to resist the temptation of creating an artificial, sterile, and pain-free ecosystem for their children. Instead, it is developmentally vital that we allow our children to experience hardship, adversity, and suffering. We also talk about the importance of helping our children develop the discipline of delayed gratification and how that correlates longitudinally with a well-balanced life and success as an adult. Last, Dr. Smith shares his thoughts on parenting in a hyper-specialization culture. If you have children in the home, you MUST listen to this episode.