World-Renowned Dr. Foster Cline, Pioneer of Love and Logic, on Raising Responsible Teens

Welcome to the Turning Winds Podcast, where we highlight the voices and ideas that help families navigate teen challenges.

This episode features Dr. Foster Cline, one of the most influential voices in modern parenting and child psychology. Dr. Cline is the co-founder of the world-renowned Love and Logic Institute, a bestselling author, and a sought-after speaker who has spent decades shaping how parents, educators, and clinicians connect with children. His work has guided millions of families across the globe and continues to stand as a trusted resource for raising resilient, responsible kids.

At Turning Winds, we have seen how Dr. Cline’s philosophy transforms family dynamics. Parents arrive expecting to solve problems with stricter rules or tighter boundaries, but they quickly learn that real progress begins with curiosity and compassion. Dr. Cline explains why asking thoughtful questions like, “What’s your plan?” does more to build responsibility than lectures or commands. He shows how language matters and replacing “advice” with “observations” keeps conversations open rather than defensive.

Listeners will hear Dr. Cline describe why teens rebel less against parents who show genuine interest in their lives and how creating systems of natural consequences, not punishments, allows kids to learn without feeling controlled. These approaches are not just theory. They are practical tools families can start using right away to reduce conflict, strengthen trust, and encourage growth.

This conversation is also a reminder that seeking care is not a sign of failure but of strength. Turning Winds provides the environment where these ideas come to life every day... a place filled with structure, consistency, and love. Many teens who once resisted guidance later return to mentor or work alongside us, a reflection of the impact that both Turning Winds and Dr. Cline’s work continue to have.

Join us for an episode with Dr. Foster Cline, a pioneer in child psychology and one of the most respected parenting experts in the world. His insights will leave you with a renewed sense of how curiosity, connection, and love can change everything for families.

To learn more about Turning Winds, visit turningwinds.com or call 800-845-1380.

Transcript

 I think one of the things that I'm curious about is when parents come there, what are the biggest questions that they have and what are the responses that you have that sometimes really surprise them?

I think sometimes parents don't always give their kids the credit for having the knowledge, and they had to say things like, kids will like you better if you take care of your hair or if you don't dress. In other words, they. They say things and try and make the kid do things that they've put into the kid between one and 11 that the kid knows anyway.

So if the kid already knows something, you don't really have to express how they need to change. And so parents, I think a lot of the parents that. Now that's many of the parents here have special needs kids in one way or another. They may be part of an autistic spectrum a little bit. The kids have been into drugs to a certain extent.

Some kids have had intrauterine problems. So there are kids that can have perfect quote, perfect parents, and that kid is still a handful, but parents need to know. Or how to come through to their kid in a way that shows that they have love and curiosity on how things are gonna turn out and talk to their kids in a way that doesn't encourage the kid's rebellion.

So one of the things that the parents just soak up is that when you are talking to kids and you're giving 'em lectures, or you're giving them rules, or you're giving them the facts, these are the facts. The rule around here is what you need to do is, and all of a sudden they can learn that. They can ask their kids questions, which is what happens when they send a kid off to a therapist anyway.

It's almost always pure questions. It's how are things going well? What have you learned from this and the magic words that love and logic uses all the time is pal, what's your plan? That that what's your plan is a way of coming through to a kid in a non-emotional way that is laying the problem on the child that still says, I'm curious and interested in your life and how things are gonna go.

And it's very hard. To rebel against a parent who has curiosity and interest in the way things are gonna go. And then we use little things in the way that we talk. We don't use words like advice and suggestions. None of us unconsciously, none of us tend to like advice and suggestions. So the words that love Logic uses are, I have some thoughts on this.

I have some observations on this. Thoughts and observations are always easier to take than. About then advice and suggestions and most kids if you approach 'em. Is this a good time to talk? I'd like to go over something with you. Is this a good time? Don't just hit the kid off. Cuff, just to say, I'd like to talk something over with you.

Is this a good time? No, not now. Maybe later. Okay. Let me know when it would be a good time. And we talked to the kids when they've cooled down about the problems that they may have had and show an interest in how they are going to handle it, what they have learned from it, how they plan to handle things in the future.

So that love and logic is a way of coming through that lays the problem in a very loving way on the kid. In a way that the kid can't rebel against it, all kids are gonna make mistakes. What every parent has to be aware of is that if the kid makes a mistake because it'll upset the parent. That's really sad.

We, what I want is I want my kids to make lots of mistakes, but none of them because it upsets me. Maybe it will upset me, but the kid's not doing, boy, this will freak my dad out. And my daughter used to come home from parties and things, laughing and talk about how some of the kids at the party would say, if my parents could see me now, they'd freak out that kids love to freak out their parents to make their kids angry and best of all, to make their kids frust, to make their parents frustrated.

'cause if I'm frustrated with a kid and I show it, of course we feel frustrated. But great leaders and great parents. Don't show their emotions. They have 'em, but they don't show 'em. So it's one thing if you, Kevin, if you were my kid, it's one thing to say, Kevin, some of the things that you do frankly pal, are frustrating to me.

I wish you didn't do 'em. That's different than if I said Kevin, let me tell you, some of your things are very frustrating to me and very upsetting to me. And see, you can't help but smile and laugh and it's all, I'm just. Doing this is, and make believe. But there's nothing a kid likes better than to control a parent's emotions.

One of the things that I've been really trying to make an effort to do as well is take a genuine interest in the hobbies and activities that they want.

So they don't feel that I'm always a prison guard and always discounting the pleasure that they're finding in something even, because it's not something I'm personally interested in, but if I learn about them, I see what brings them joy. I think that's when I've realized I'm being a better parent.

And I think they feel, they just feel better about themselves. That they're, I'm not constantly on a course correction path with them, just batting them into the direction that I want. Yeah. That's really important because when the kids are three and four, they wanna enter our lives. So if we're working on a motorcycle, they wanna help us work on the motorcycle, but when they get to be in teenagers.

They can get excited about various games, various things going on. And so rather than just, I'm not saying that video games are good for kids, but before we tell 'em to shut it off, shut that game off. It's to sit down with them and say I see how this game could really be addicting.

It is fun to play, but. Do you see any negatives about it? 'Cause I gotta tell you, this is a fun game and it could be very addicting and talk it over with the kid. And a and children can make rules for themselves. Yeah, I probably shouldn't do it more than an hour a day or two hours a day, or whatever they say, and if the kids can be involved in making their own guidelines. In the house. 'cause we don't like it when a kid is talking on the phone all the time or talking to their friends or when we're trying to talk to 'em, they have a phone up to their face. We don't like that. But if we talk it over with the kid and say, let's make some guidelines around this, what works for you?

If a kid is, can take ownership and some of the rules and regulations, it tends to work a lot better than if we're just giving them the word. I think the best way to do it when you think about it, because there you can't just. Do it for them a hundred percent and then expect them to do it instantly as soon as they walk out the door.

Yeah. So you're teaching them how to have. Self-agency and ownership of the world around of their behavior in the world. So I try that and what comes up over and over again is while we might as parents be trying to control who the kid sees and where they're going in the world, what they're doing, we don't know a damn thing about what they're doing and what the world is like or what their friends are really like or what they see in 'em sometimes.

And I told the group today that, I have to be careful how I word this on, but there was a situation with a kid in my family that I thought, boy, I hope she doesn't marry him. Oh, that would be so sad. This kid, from my point of view, had a number of problems, but that was. Years ago, and now she did marry the kid and they have three kids and they're a wonderful family.

And and my, my relative saw things in that kid that none of the rest of us saw. And I've seen sometimes parents will come in and say, I, I can't stand that group that my kid's working with. I can't stand that group that my kid's running with. And. In the old days, my kids were young and I knew the groups the kids were running with, and I always felt like saying to certain patients I gotta tell you, that group is your own kid's best hope.

Because you don't have to worry about that kid being bad for your kids. Those other parents could be worried that your kids in that group, so let's hope some of that group rubs off on your kid. Because we sometimes, we just don't know a squad about what's really going on in their lives.



 I want parents to understand that it's okay to feel a little bit lost and to not fear the concept of care. When you think about that, it's okay there's probably a better path out there. If what was working, we wouldn't be in this situation.

Let's seek care. Let's seek people with experience in this. Let's seek an environment that they can be in that's warm, but also knows how to guide situations, conversations, conflicts 24 hours a day and not have the natural moments that parents are gonna have. When they give up and they throw all their good intentions out the window and start yelling.

So what would you say to parents to encourage them to, you know what, maybe it's worth a conversation, even if it's difficult to admit that. It's always. I guess Kevin, it's always worth trying to have a conversation, and if a kid sits down and wants to have a conversation, that's great. The secret is coming through to 'em in a way that they don't feel judged and they're not feeling put down, and they're not feeling that you're talking to 'em in a witness type of thing.

Most people don't rebel against someone who comes through in a loving way, says, I wanna understand you. People are popping into therapists all over the United States. I just want someone to understand me, and people wanna be understood. That's true of our kids too. So if we come through to 'em in a way if we say to, I don't understand why you did that.

What was going through your head? Versus, I often wonder, honey, what were you thinking when you did that? Would you mind sharing that with me? Because I am curious about what was, what were you thinking about at that time? I'm saying the same thing, but it depends, it's the attitude with which we say it, and great parents and great leaders feel frustration and they feel angry, but they don't show it.

And the leadership that has trouble and the parents that have trouble, have their emotions and just blow 'em all out and they, that's just, that's a problem. But the nice thing about love and logic is once you start using it. And start being curious about the kid laying the problem on their shoulders, not making it part of your problem.

It's, it becomes self reinforcing because it, it tends to work well. May not work immediately, but it tends with most kids most of the time to really tone things down in a family love and logic and it makes common sense. Love and logic is a common sense approach of consequences and. Not punishment, but consequences for their behavior.

Yeah. And I think parents sometimes underestimate sort of the importance just of. How many facets to, the teenage years there, there are in terms of their education, their social growth, their introspection, just the mental development that happens is their bodies change and their interests change and there's something inherent in that.

Inherent in them that really says push away, fight back, get, I'm leaving the nest. I know what's right \ what is it to have, like in an environment that's different from going to see a a psychiatrist once a week and being in an environment where you're actually committing to positive change.

I have to say Turning Winds is extremely effective in setting up a consequential but non-punitive system that is just filled with love and therapists and staff who. Don't take things personally 'cause it's easy to take things personally when you're working with a very difficult kid. But they have a staff here that doesn't take things personally, that they have a ladder system in such a way that if the kid doesn't get to go on a pontoon boat ride or they don't get to go on a hike or they don't have a certain fun outfit, that it's not a punitive thing that the kid doesn't get to go.

It's just that. The group might have more fun if you didn't go with us, and the kid understands that. It's not a world of punishment at all, but it is a world where if you have certain behavior, you're more likely to get ahead in the world than if you don't show that behavior. It's a, it is, actually turning Wind is very much a love and logic consequential place that works with kids in such a way.

I wanna say that kids in the past wanna come back and volunteer at Turning Winds or take an internship here or wanna come back and work with kids. Now that's really saying something when the kids that were worked with years ago wanna come back now and come home to Turning Winds and work with kids.

They know what it's like 'cause they were here in their past. That's a sign of a a worthy organization, I'd say. \