Monday Morning Mentor: 10 Parenting “Don’ts” for Raising Well-Adjusted Kids In this Monday Morning Mentor episode, Jason Wright reflects on parenting his daughters Ryland (26, newly married) and Abby, sharing a list of “not to do” parenting lessons shaped partly by his own experience with conditional love growing up. He advises parents not to make love conditional, not to guilt-trip kids about costs or sacrifices, and not to praise intelligence over effort to avoid a fixed mindset (citing Carol Dweck’s work). He warns against spoiling children and recommends teaching delayed gratification through goals or matching contributions. Other “don’ts” include letting kids get tattoos, accepting important messages by text instead of calls, allowing sloppy dress, and letting a day pass without meaningful conversation or without saying “I love you,” emphasizing agape love as action. 00:00 Welcome and Support 00:41 Why Parenting Matters 02:13 Parenting Donts Setup 02:51 Avoid Conditional Love 04:29 Skip the Guilt Trips 05:28 Praise Effort Not Smarts 07:54 No Spoiling Teach Earning 11:17 Think Twice About Tattoos 15:03 Calls Over Texts 17:02 Dress With Self Respect 20:09 Daily Real Conversations 22:25 Say I Love You Daily 23:33 Wrap Up and Sign Off

A Plea to Get Smarter: Brain Fitness, Reading, and Escaping the Attention Economy Jason Wright asks listeners to intentionally “get smarter” by strengthening their ability to reason, focus, and tolerate boredom, arguing society is regressing in communication and thinking and that this correlates with widening wealth gaps. He warns that “free” digital services (Pluto TV, Gmail, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook) make users the product by monetizing attention, and encourages replacing doom-scrolling with reading and other “brain fitness” habits. Citing books and thinkers like Greg McKeown (Essentialism), Arthur Brooks (The Meaning of Your Life), and Cal Newport (Deep Work, Big Questions), he frames reading as pushups for the brain and suggests puzzles, learning guitar, timers/deleting apps, and reading a few sentences before checking social media. He urges reduced dependence on LLMs by thinking first, researching independently, writing by hand, and using AI mainly to polish, and recommends using history to contextualize current events, ending with a call to be a better thinker over partisan identity. 00:00 Welcome and a Plea 00:57 Why Society Feels Dumber 02:56 Free Apps and You Are Product 04:12 Books and Digital Minimalism 06:13 Brain Fitness Through Reading 07:34 Beat Doomscrolling With Three Sentences 10:04 Use LLMs Less Think More 10:57 Write by Hand to Think Better 13:01 History Repeats Itself 14:21 Final Plea and Closing 15:40 Outro and Calls to Action

After his daughter’s wedding, Jason shares advice from the Bible studies they held leading up to it: to maintain a happy marriage, treat your spouse as though they already are the man or woman of your dreams, because people tend to live up to how they are treated. He extends this idea to all relationships and to personal growth through identity-based habits—acting like the healthier, smarter, or more successful version of yourself makes it more likely you’ll become that person. Jason describes how he cherishes his wife, Jim Lynn, with daily affection and small acts like making her coffee, and warns that nagging, harshness, or treating a spouse like a cheater or lazy person can push them toward those behaviors. He closes with podcast credits and a request for newsletter sign-ups and a five-star iTunes rating.

00:00 Wedding Weekend Reflections

00:27 Treat Them Like the Dream

01:37 Identity Habits for You

02:21 Bragging on My Wife

03:25 Your Monday Challenge

03:49 The Danger of Negativity

04:33 Show Wrap and Call to Action