The following podcast is a Dear Media production.

Welcome to Raising Good Humans.

I'm Dr. Eliza Pressman, and today's conversation is with Dr. Thomas Boyce.

I'm so excited about it.

It's quite long because Dr. Boyce is the professor

of pediatrics and psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, who coined the term

and created nearly 40 years of study looking at orchids and dandelions.

So essentially, he has helped us all understand whether you know it's him or not

that human beings respond to the environment in totally different ways.

And while most kids tend to be like dandelions, fairly resilient and able to adapt to

stress and adversity in their lives, about 20% of kids, he calls Orchid children are more

sensitive and biologically reactive to their circumstances.

So it is more challenging for them to

deal with stressful situations, but given the right environment, the right interventions, the right

support system, orchid children actually show great sensitivity to positive environments. So in this conversation, he's really explaining what are

orchids, what are dandelions, what are ways to help orchids thrive? What do we take too far?

I think that that was a really important part of the conversation is if we've spent all this time sort of understanding temperament and understanding which one of our children has these heightened sensitivities, have we as a society, have we culturally, have we generally speaking, misunderstood what sensitive caregiving is such that we're actually counterproductive.

There's so many cool things we talked about. I hope you enjoy this episode with this incredible

man who has contributed so much to this field. His book, The Orchid and the Dandelion,

Why Some Children's Struggle and How All Can Thrive,

has changed how people think about human beings.

It's, I cannot, I cannot say enough,

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