STOP Ruining Your Kids Its Dangerous

The scariest thing and best thing that we ever did was to remove our kids from the school system, system, system. Anyway, hey guys, Grant Cardone here. As you know, I want to talk to you about parenting. But I'm not giving parenting advice either way, because I would never do that. Father of two, been married 22 years, 8,030 days or something, hoping to make it 10,000 days. Two beautiful kids. And while this is not parenting advice, I know I would never have anyone give me parenting advice. But a lot of you have reached out to me and said, dude, what's working with your kids? Because something clearly is working. And refusing to settle for average. I want to share with you what Elaine and I have done to raise our kids, a 14-year-old and a 16-year-old, and has proven to be extremely successful, producing two very exceptional kids. Now, I'm not taking credit for all that. But I do want to tell you and maybe share with other parents what has worked for us. Again, not advice, but just what has worked for us. Now, it might sound like proud parent, you know, fluffing up, saying my kids are the best. But in truth, if you've ever met my kids or seen them online, speaking to audiences, writing their own scripts, they've worked with us since they were five years old. They're on a payroll, never given them allowance. Elaine has probably had more to do with making our kids great than I have. But there's a couple things that we have done that I think have contributed to us having great kids. I also want you to let you know that this is clearly my bias, my personal experience. Yes, I probably have some prejudice, blah, blah, blah. This is not science by any means. So take it, leave it, or whatever you want to do with it. Consume the information I'm about to share with you. Throw it away. Tell me I'm an idiot. But just know with full understanding that where we are today and what we're doing with our kids has been successful. So this is content, but you got to take it with the context that we're still learning. And who knows, maybe it all turns bad. Look, first of all, we didn't have kids until I was 51 years old. I think that that had a lot to do with it. I didn't get married until I was 50. I was just an idiot prior to that, completely committed to my business and my money and my getting known and getting things right. So I think that has a lot to do with it. So that gives you more context. I was 51 years old before we had our first kids. Elaine and I were both crazy before that and don't know that we would have made good parents prior to our commitment, both of us being completely committed to our spiritual development and involvement. So we made that a priority, very, very important part of the context. We were working on ourselves as much as we were on our marriage or our business or even being parents. Number two, we did parenting courses before we had our kids at our church and we did communication courses, communicating with a child as an infant, two years old, five years old, as you know, eight years old, 12 years old and 15 years old changes. In fact, I've done that communication course and that parenting course five different times because as the kids evolve, you know, it's different. Okay. And it meant I needed to change. They didn't need to change. So that communication course and that parenting course done at my church, at Church of Scientology was extremely, extremely valuable to both of us. And I believe it has contributed greatly to how we've raised our kids. By the way, you don't have to, you can be a Baptist, Mormon, atheist, agnostic, Jewish, Muslim, you know, born again Christian. You can be whatever you want to be and still do those courses. I know I did and Elena did. I also believe that prior to this, something that really contributed and it's probably too late for you if you haven't done this is that my wife, courageous beast that she is, had both these kids, natural home childbirth with no medication, zero drugs. So if you haven't done that and you've already had your kids, obviously it's too late. But I absolutely believe that to not introducing the kids to any kind of drugs, to the mother, to any kind of drugs during that period of time had something to do with this. Early on, we both had shifts in responsibilities when we had the kids. I took early, early responsibilities so my wife could sleep in. That benefited us. I made sure that she could sleep in as a mother. I would take Sabrina out early, early in the morning and invest time with her. Then when I went off to work, I went off to work and that was it. I wouldn't see her till I got back that day. We also agreed to make sure that our kids were in a safe environment. We did not want to terrify them with be careful, be careful, be careful constantly from the parents. We knew it was our job to make sure the kids felt safe at all times and it was not our job to make sure the kids were careful. They did not see two parents drinking or drugging. They're just adults by the way with small bodies and you don't need to invalidate them because of their size or tell them to be careful constantly. I think it was very helpful so that our kids could actually explore and discover. The scariest thing and best thing that we ever did was to remove our kids from the school system. They were first in a monastery school and then a private school. The private school I think cost about 25 grand a person. Well, that's the best school in Miami and they're great and these are exceptional kids and they're advanced. Both these schools, while they were highly regarded, both these schools we experienced and witnessed and observed setbacks for our children. Our kids did not do well in either one of those schools and looking back now it was a lazy step to ever enter them there in order for them to be socialized and have a normal kid's life. We noticed that the kids were coming home with these weird, bizarre ideas that were not taught at home. We found out that they were doing courses and being introduced to stuff at school by the teachers that we had never agreed upon and would never ever teach our kids. I remember one of them came. They were four or five years old and they were in meditation class. I'm like, guys, I didn't sign up my kids to be in meditation class, which was really by the way not a medication class. It was a nap. I'm like, dude, I don't need them sleeping in school. I need them getting tired. I want them to sleep when they get home. I would have never signed my kids up for this. There was political conversations in the schools. These kids were six and eight and they were talking about Republicans and Democrats and how people should vote and like all this crazy stuff and I'm like, look, teach them math, teach them English, teach them geography, teach them a bunch of a history that has been probably perverted, but please stay out of all this other stuff. So we just took them out. I was reminded by the way at that time how much I actually hated school as a kid. I was bored. I was bullied. I was introduced to drugs and alcohol there, but I was forced to stay still, don't move, listen to the class, never agreed to signing up for any of those classes as a kid. Anyway, long story short, we made the hard decision to bring our kids out of school and homeschool and they immediately, I'm talking about immediately within three days, got better. Now the two issues with homeschooling, just to be completely honest, one, your kids will not be socialized by other kids. By the way, that's a benefit, not a bug. And look, for all of you that want your kids to be educated by strangers and socialized by strangers, I mean, just think about it. Public schools, private schools, they're there for you. They'll do it for almost for free. Bad school lunches, bad advice, you know, a bunch of other kids. I mean, I think 20% of the kids in the school system today are medicated. So you already know those kids have issues. And I'm not sure that the issues they have is worse than the medication. Also, you got the educators. You can't do due diligence on all of them. So we removed that. We removed our kids from the educators, from the socialization. And let me tell you the downside. The downside is they don't get the volleyball. They don't get the football. They don't get to be the cheerleader. They don't have a bunch of friends. And that downside might actually be the upside. It's my belief that children don't need children. In fact, children will not spend most of their life with children. Their survival in the future will not be upon, it will not be the kids they hung out with. In fact, they won't know most of those kids. I don't remember any of the kids that I went to school with. Maybe I remember what Pete Nash that beat me up, Michael that beat me up. So I remember these kids, but they probably know more about me today than I remember or know about what they're doing today. It's my experience that the best way to educate your kids and the best way to socialize your kids is with people that are older than them, not younger than them or the same age. They will spend most of their life and their future will depend upon their ability to communicate and to socialize with adults, not kids. When they're at school, you don't know what's happening. You don't know what they're being taught. It's very difficult for you to later undo that training. Extremely difficult. You could spend all day teaching them one way and boom, they go to school for eight hours and one kid or one teacher or accumulation of them could undo everything that you taught. In our culture today, there's all kinds of crazy stuff being taught. Medication is the normal way of life. You got Oprah right now on TV saying that we have obesity because you have a gene break or a disease or some mental illness. Like, okay, whatever. You believe that? That's great. I'm in the health business, okay? I know that you do not have obesity because of a gene break or a disease or some mental illness. You have obesity because you eat bad foods too much because they don't have it in Spain, France, Greece, or Italy. So it's not about the gene break, Oprah. It's about the influence in your surroundings. If the flower is not growing, don't blame the flower, blame the soil. And that's what schools are today. Your kids need to learn about finance. It's not there. Your kids need to learn how to be of service, how to contribute, how to work, financial literacy, discipline, how to speak, how to debate. Most of those classes do not even exist in the school system today because the government has got involved in the school system. How about how to flourish and how to prosper and how to stand with confidence, how to finish a task, how to be disciplined? Most of those things are never taught, never considered, never even recommended, okay? How to become self-reliant and how to become sufficient, how to become rich or how to create wealth, okay? How to do chores, make a bed. Anyway, you get the point. Your kids are never too young. It's not that important that a five-year-old hang out with another five-year-old. What are they going to do? Both pick their nose, okay, and eat their boogers? Come on, let's face it. When you're five, how much do you have to offer? Look, we've had a lot of success with our kids because of that communication course I mentioned, because Elena and I took on responsibility to not let strangers educate our kids. It's really, really helped us. There's an actual science behind communication, and there's a science behind parenting. At the age each of our kids have been working for our companies for three years, that's a tax deduction, by the way, better than an allowance. Both of our kids have been on payroll that entire time with a list of things to do, contract that we check off at the end of the year each quarter to make sure they get their money. We take that money, we then invested it in Cardone Capital. Cardone Capital pays a monthly distribution that's tiny. So if we paid the kids, let's say 50 grand, and they get 300 bucks a month, they can't mess up the 50. The only thing that could mess up was the 300. And by the way, now they're learning how to manage money. So when they come to me and say, hey, I want an iPhone, and I'm like, you only have 300 bucks in the account. In another four months, you'll have 1,200, and then you can go buy your iPhone. They only have 1,200 bucks, and they'll only have $200 left. And maybe at that time, they make a decision to not buy the iPhone, which has happened to both of my kids, by the way. I hate to crash your bubble about the old homeschooling thing that, oh, it's hard, and I'm not going to be able to teach my kids. I don't know how to do the math. And, oh, last one, it's expensive. It's a lot cheaper to homeschool your kids than you believe it is. It was cheaper, in fact. It saved us about $22,000 a kid not sending our kids to school. Costs about $2,500 with the coach, the online training. Now, if both of us were not home, somebody would need to be at home, so you would need to figure that out. But in our case, it actually saved us money because half the time I work from home. Now, the super cool thing is our kids are around us all the time, super benefit. Our kids get to see us all the time. They get to see me working. I bring them to work. If they don't want to stay at home, I come to the office. When I come home, they're there. If they want to go with me, which most of the time they want to go with me, they get to be around me, see me, experience me, doing their homeschooling in my office, listening to me negotiate $100 million deals. What's the downside of that? Or when we go on a trip, they get to fly with us and do their homework on the way to the next location. Clearly, if you're a single parent, you're a mom, you're a waitress, I understand you're making $3,000 or $4,000 or $5,000 a month, and you're like, dude, how am I going to do this? Look, it's already hard. I understand. I get it. But maybe look at how you could do it and how it could be easier. Or maybe you look at, hey, you want to put 10 or 12 or 15 kids in your local market that want to be homeschooled. The homeschooling game's booming, and it's going to continue to boom. I think 5 million kids are being homeschooled today. That number could swell to $25 million. That would be a good job. Leave the job you have now, start a homeschool network and charge the other parents $2,000 each, make yourself 10 grand a year, and stay home and homeschool your kid for free. Anyway, if we're going to screw up our kids, if our kids are going to screw up, at least we would know who did it, us. Simply, how could you strangers that have to manage 15 or 20 kids do worse than two people that are the parents just paying attention to their kids? Simply, how could strangers do a worse or better job with our kids than we would do because we're invested? This actually worked with our kids. Sabrina and Scarlett are winning in life. They're winning with their friends. They have leadership qualities. They know how to take an order. They know how to deliver on a project. Both of them have made hundreds and hundreds of phone calls. They've been in front of tens of thousands of people. They've written their own scripts. At this point, 14 and 16, those challenging years, they've turned out to be great. My kids have spent 99% of their time around adults, not other kids. Yeah, they missed a whole bunch of stuff. Guess what? If I had missed all that stuff, I'd probably be further ahead in my own life. Each of them is able to communicate with anyone about anything. If you ever see them on the streets, just stop. Hey, Sabrina, Scarlett, say hi. See if they don't say hi. See if they don't shake your hand. See if they don't make eye contact with you when they're talking. They both know exactly how to work. They know how to work. They know how to have a good attitude. They know how to make a good impression. They know how to show up. Look, what's more important in life to your kid? The ability to communicate, to be present, to duplicate the communication, to not look at a phone all day long, 29 hours out of 24 hours, not be fixated on this. They're able to communicate with another person. To have a communication with another person, to be present regardless of whether they're 13 years old or 83 years old, to take interest, to find out who you are. Communication has got to be one of the greatest skills your kids will ever have. And unfortunately, most of that is not taught in school. So just a big shout out to all the parents over there. If you're a single parent, you've got dual parenting. Maybe you're from a split home and you're parenting at all. Hey, congratulations. I know how hard it is. I know how much of an obligation and commitment it is. It is the hardest, biggest, and most important job in the world. So I thought I'd share with you what's worked for us. Again, this wasn't meant to be advice. It was meant to be. This is working. Maybe tried, maybe not. Good luck to you. And again, thank you for being a parent. Thank you for having a commitment to being a great parent. And all of you out there that are being great parents, dude, hardest job in the world, most important job in the world. Thank you so much. And especially you single moms out there. I was raised by a single mom. She took on five kids. Can't even imagine this. Five kids and did a great job with us. So thanks, mom. Are you going to wear that earpiece, mouthpiece, microphone for the rest of the day? Is that part of your outfit now? Oh, my God. I love my family. We are so awesome. I love my family. We are so awesome. I love how we joke with each other. We give each other a hard time. Then we lift each other. We praise each other. We make fun of each other. We're just ride or die 10X family. Freaking love us.