Dr. Becky Kennedy: #1 Parenting Mistake Fueling Your Kid’s Anxiety! Follow THIS Proven Framework to Raise Emotionally Strong Adults | On Purpose with Jay Shetty

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Shop back to school at Amazon. We've gone from not caring about kids' emotions to being scared of kids' emotions.

The more you optimize for happiness in childhood, the more you actually wire for anxiety in adulthood.

Dr. Becky Kennedy, the go-to voice for modern parents.

Helping parents break cycles and build connections.

What actually makes a good parent? Repair without a doubt is the most important parenting strategy.

What's the worst thing a parent can say to a child that's going through a difficult time?

I don't care about your feelings. I'm not listening.

I'm not really connecting. I am telling you what to do.

I'm leading with control. Can you be your kid's best friend and still set boundaries?

Kids need us to embody our authority. Boundaries and validation when paired together, that's what makes for really resilient adults.

What's the cost of being a good kid who never caused problems?

You can't learn to manage emotions you feel like you're not allowed to have.

If we can't tolerate the challenging feelings our kids have and we look for a quick distraction, what they learn is, I'm a kid and I find my feelings overwhelming, but oh my goodness, my parent life is overwhelming.

You've said it's not your job to make your kids happy.

Yeah. What is a parent's job? the number one health and wellness podcast.

Jay Shetty. Jay Shetty. The one, the only, Jay Shetty.

Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to become happier, healthier, and more healed.

I'm so grateful that I get to talk to today's thought leaders and experts about the things that matter, that make a difference in our daily lives.

And today's topic is something I'm fascinated by.

It's something I talk to my wife, Radhi, about a lot.

And it's something that takes a lot of my mind space, even though I'm not one of these yet.

But today's topic is parenting, and today's guest is Dr. Becky Kennedy, clinical psychologist, bestselling author, and founder of Good Insight, a global parenting and mental health platform.

Named by Time as the millennial parent whisperer, Dr. Becky is known for bringing practical, compassionate tools that help families and individuals thrive.

Dr. Becky's bestselling book, Good Inside, has helped over a million people feel seen and supported through life's toughest moments.

And in today's episode, we dive into how to honor hard emotions, set healthy boundaries, and grow through the everyday challenges of parenting and connection.

In all honesty, I've sparked so many of the best conversations I've had around becoming a parent because of Dr. Becky Kennedy's work.

So I'm so excited to have her on the show today.

Becky, welcome to On Purpose. Thank you.

I'm so excited to be here. It's so great to have you here.

I want to start off by diving into just...

Things that you say that really stick with me and I go, yes, I feel like that resonates.

You said, we've gone from not caring about kids' feelings to letting kids' feelings dictate what we do as parents.

Yeah. And when you said that, of course, I'm looking at this as someone who wants to be a parent, but I'm looking at parents around me.

That idea that we all feel we grew up at a time when our parents didn't care, they weren't present, they didn't know what was going on with our feelings and emotions.

We've now gone to a place of our kids' feelings dictating what we do.

Yeah. Talk to me about that. Yeah, I think naming this overcorrection is really helpful because yes, decades ago, I mean, probably still some families now, right?

It's, I don't know, let's say some version of, I don't want to go to Aunt Sally's house.

I don't care if you want to go to Aunt Sally's house, put on a smile, put on your shoes or else, and then some consequence, right?

Okay, that would be, I don't care about your feelings.

I'm not listening. I'm not really connecting.

I am telling you what to do. I'm leading with control.

And I think there's a generation of people who are like, that didn't feel good.

And we also know that emotions and learning how to understand your emotions, how to manage your emotions, you can't learn to manage emotions.

You feel like you're not allowed to have disappointment as a kid.

How could you ever manage disappointment as an adult?

So it's not really the pathway to strength and resilience, right?

But yes, what I've noticed is something... completely overcorrected that I would say is equally as bad for kids.

Same situation. I don't want to go to Aunt Sally's today.

It's so boring. I want to hang out with my friends.

Okay, you know what? And then fill in the blank.

I'll get a sitter. I'll stay home. Let me call three different people and, you know, see what you can do.

And there's so many examples of this. I okay, well, I guess we'll stay at the playground longer.

And it's not to say I'm against parent flexibility.

Sometimes, of course, we can be flexible.

But we've gone from not caring about kids' emotions to being scared of kids' emotions.

That's why we let them run the show. That's why we give our kids' emotions kind of the steering wheel.

And I think what we stand for a good inside is something remarkably in the middle.

It is very important to see your kids' feelings as real.

That's really what it is. That's what validation is.

It's a process of saying to someone else, I might not be feeling what you're feeling, but what you are feeling is real, and I am interested in learning about it.

I think that's very important. Oh, you don't want to go to Sally's house.

I get it. You'd rather be sitting home and watching the basketball game on TV.

Totally hear you. And then I think there's a well-placed and, because that is part of our job.

Empathizing with a kid's feelings is only half of your job as a parent.

The other half is setting a true boundary, is what I think of as authority without aggression, which is rarely modeled, but is important, which is some version of we committed to going to Aunt Sally's as a family.

And the truth is, there's a good amount of things we all have to do that aren't number one on our agenda, that are even a little bit boring.

This is one of those things. It's okay if you whine on the way there.

I know when we get there, you're going to be able to pull it together.

It's not going to be your most fun Saturday, but we'll get through it as a family.

All right, what kind of music do you want to listen to in the car?

Why do we find that so tough? Why is that so hard to do as a parent?

I think there's so many factors. So I think part of it is actually just a lack of confusion and teaching, right?

I think we can get into this bigger conversation.

I'll just name it and not go into it now.

Parenting is the last job in the world where we glorify instinct alone.

We haven't been taught, well, how do I connect to my kid but also hold a boundary, right?

It would be like telling a surgeon to do surgery without medical school.

That's kind of what we do to parents. So it's really hard.

Send them home with a baby. Yeah, literally, right?

And I remember going home with a baby. I looked around, really, like no one's, Just a car seat?

Like, I remember looking around and no one was coming.

I was like, guess I'm good. Okay. That's what we do.

And it's the hardest job in the world. So I think part of it is how can you employ a skill in a difficult situation when you've never been taught a skill and that skill wasn't modeled in your own childhood?

So I think that's number one. Number two, and this is like a really big one for kind of why right now is this so – powerful.

So much of parenting is inconvenient. It's just the word that's not talked about enough for parenting.

When you have to get out your door to go to Aunt Sally's 50th luncheon, which my guess is maybe you're not really even dying to do either, there's a lot of frustration.

Your kid is whining. Your kid is saying why they shouldn't go.

And if I think about where parenting is today versus decades ago, I think us adults, we've become less and less tolerant of frustration.

We have our phones. We have our dopamine.

We have so much more ease in our life. And one of the things I always think about is our kids can't learn to tolerate feelings we don't tolerate in them.

So if I have an increasingly lowered frustration tolerance because of all of the ease and dopamine hits in my life, I am inherently less tolerant of my kids whining.

Wow. And then the reason I let my kids whining take the driver's seat and I say, fine, you know what, just go to your friend's house.

I actually think it doesn't even have to do with making our kid happy, which I don't think is good as a predominant philosophy either.

I actually just want to stop feeling frustrated myself.

I just don't want to deal with it. So if we can't tolerate our kids' disappointment or frustration, they're not learning too, which is why then it looks like their emotions are making all the decisions.

Wow. That's extremely powerful, which is why, because they can't tolerate their feelings because of our reaction to their feelings, they now don't actually develop resilience or grit or all the things we want them to develop because tolerance and knowing how to accept and sit in the feeling is such an important skillset.

I mean, this is everything, right? I think I'm a visual person, so I've done this before, but I think it matters that, you know, if we think about kids, they're born into the world and they're born with all the feelings and none of the skills to manage feelings.

There's a gap. All the feelings, none of the skills.

Bad behavior, whether it's a four-year-old hitting their sister, whether it's your teenager saying, I'm not going to Aunt Sally's, whether a kid is saying, I hate you, you're the worst mom, I don't want to be in this family, lying to your face.

Every single acting out behavior is a sign that feelings are greater than skills.

But the problem isn't the feelings. The problem is the lack of skills.

So the answer to over time having a lot better behavior or something more powerful than behavior, it's building skills, building emotion regulation skills.

Kids are not born with those skills. And we as parents, we are kind of the coaches.

But I think as our life gets so busy, right, as we're more distracted, and just to be clear, let me say right away, I'm not like above this.

I'm not like, you should all watch me. I'm a perfectly present parent all the time.

No, right? Modern life is so hard, right?

But yes, if we can't tolerate the challenging feelings our kids have, and we look for a quick distraction or a quick exit for them right away, then what they learn is something really interesting.

What they learn is, I'm a kid and I find my feelings overwhelming, but oh my goodness, my parent finds my feelings overwhelming.

The things that feel scary and toxic to me, maybe they really are scary and toxic.

And then things can kind of go from there.

Yeah, and I think one of the challenges with that is that not only do the kids not have the skills, we potentially as adults have never had time to develop the skills ourselves and no one taught us.

And so that pattern continues. How do you overcome mom guilt?

Such a good question. So let me paint a scenario because I want to know if we're talking about the same thing.

So I'll hear – what I kind of referred to before is a situation.

Like I'm going out to dinner with my friends and it's often – I haven't seen a group of my friends without kids around in, I don't know, however long, a long time.

But then I have my dog or my son clinging to my leg. mom, you never put me to bed.

And meanwhile, in this situation, if it's like my house, I've like put my kid to bed for the last 37 nights.

Okay. But still in that moment, it's like, you never put me to bed.

And then what a mom will often say to me is I feel so guilty.

Like I feel so guilty. It's not even worth going out to dinner.

Like it's not even worth it. I don't know.

Is that kind of along the lines? Okay. That's fine.

Okay. So the way I see this I actually don't think we're talking about guilt here.

I don't. I think this is a misunderstanding of what guilt is.

So we'll start with that. To me, guilt is a feeling you have when you act out of alignment with your values.

And in that way, it's a very important feeling, like all of our feelings are important for information, because it helps... you have enough discomfort to reflect on like, well, what are my values?

Like if I no-showed to this podcast and didn't even text you, I'd feel guilty.

It is not within my value system to no-show on people, right?

That would be helpful. And I think, why did I do that, right?

But what I hear all the time from moms is going out to dinner, my kid's clinging, I feel guilty.

So I'll say, okay, really, is it within your value system, and only you would know this, while you're a mother to see your friends some of the time?

100% of moms say yes. Yeah. So I say, okay, so this is interesting.

This is definitely a painful experience, but this is not guilt.

This literally isn't guilt. And here's what I think it is.

I think as women, especially, but it's not only for women.

Going back to that good girl idea, we've developed the tendency to scan our environment and see other people who are upset with us.

And we kind of do this. We're like, you're feeling uncomfortable.

I will take that feeling out of your body.

I will take it into my body. And I will call it guilt.

And I will change something I'm doing so you don't have to feel that way.

That's not guilt. That's actually emotional confusion.

And I find visuals helpful. So to me, if you picture yourself on a tennis court, let's say I'm on one side and my daughter who's clinging to me is on the other side.

But instead of a tennis net, let's say there's a glass wall.

What will happen is I'm like, okay, I'm on my side.

I know I want to go to dinner with my friends.

I haven't seen them. It's important. It's with my value system.

I'm grounded in that. Over there is my daughter who's upset.

Number one, two things are true can help here.

Two things are true. I'm allowed to go out to dinner.

My daughter's allowed to go upset, to be upset, period.

But if I picture that tennis court, the reason it's helpful is I now picture my kid, you never put me to bed.

I'm so upset. It's actually really powerful how many people have told me it's true.

It's like somehow those feelings in her body start to come out and start to come to my side of the court.

And all of a sudden they're on my side and I'm saying things like, don't you want me to be happy or final cancel?

And actually the interesting thing is, I'm not even doing that for my daughter at this point.

That's why it's not guilt. I'm doing that to rid myself of this feeling that wasn't even mine in the first place.

And you can't even empathize because you can only empathize with someone's feeling when it's their feeling.

As soon as you've made it your own, you're playing your own game.

So if we go through this scenario, and I do this with so many women, I'm like, okay, so you're on this court.

I want you to literally imagine doing this.

And if anyone's listening and can't see me, I'm putting my hands by my chest and I'm like... pushing it out.

The visual matters. Like my kid's sadness, I am pushing it out of my body and I'm giving it back to them.

I'm not pushing it away and I'm not doing it violently.

I'm just kind of giving it back to its rightful owner, okay?

Because then I can actually empathize. Because once it's back in her body, I can say, oh, you really wish it was me putting you to bed and not daddy.

I get that. Yeah, I really wish it was you.

Listen, this is one of those nights I'm going to dinner with my friends.

It's okay if it feels hard. You're safe with dad.

You're allowed to be upset. I will see you in the morning.

Now, when I do that, again, my child has never said to me, have a great dinner, mom.

Or that was sturdy leadership. Or you use that guilt tennis image, didn't you?

That never happened. They keep crying. Again, we're not our good interventions.

Yeah. They're just simply not rewarded by kids' calm behavior.

And the sooner we realize that, you know, the better, even though we keep wanting it, me too, to be true.

And now I go out, and the truth is, on my walk to dinner, I feel a little uneasy.

I'm like, I'm so guilty. But I say, Becky, that's not guilt.

I'm actually literally not guilt. I am acting in alignment with my values.

That is my daughter's distress. And actually, my job is to help her build tolerance for distress.

And I actually just did that while I kept my dinner plan because I know if I canceled, you think I'm not resentful of my daughter and not screaming her head off at the time she asked for a second book at bedtime because I wish I was at dinner with my friend in the first place.

And I know you've also said that women in particular feel a pressure because there's always been this idea that women should have a maternal instinct.

And you talk about parenting being a skill as much as the kids needing these skills as they're growing up.

And women have this unfair pressure of, well, it's natural to you.

I mean, I think that that's the thing when I became a mom that was so personally striking.

This idea of maternal instinct, I think, has had a profound impact on our culture, right?

Because I'm not saying there's nothing about parenting that's instinctual.

I think we instinctually love our kid or there's certain moments that come naturally.

But yeah, when your kid is having a grocery store meltdown...

And the mom you're trying to become friends with is kind of watching you in the store, right?

When your kid says, I hate you, you're the worst parent in the world.

When your kid is delaying, I don't know, a bedtime or brushing their teeth.

When your kid lies to your face, I didn't take money.

And you like see the Nest Cam of them taking money.

We're saying we think our instinct is going to lead to good decisions.

Most people I know would say, my instinct is telling me to scream in my child's face.

You know why? Because your parent probably screamed in your face because-

They didn't have the resources they need, right?

And over and over, I'd be meeting parents.

It was so interesting. It was mostly moms who would tell me always some version of the same story.

They'd come at a live event. They'd say something nice, and then they would unload.

And it was kind of some version of I go to bed feeling awful about myself.

I don't know what I'm doing. I'm yelling at my kids all the time.

I feel like I'm a monster. I feel like I'm messing my kids up forever. ever, right?

And then I would kind of contain the situation.

I'd listen. And then I'd dig in because I always want to know when someone's struggling so much, what resources do they have?

And I'd always hear the same thing. Resources.

Like, it shouldn't be this hard. It shouldn't be this hard.

I should be able to figure this out on my own.

I don't know. It was striking. If I think about the best athletes in the world, even the ones who have amazing athletic instinct, right?

I don't know. Steph Curry, LeBron James.

I'm pretty sure they had a lot of coaching.

Yeah. I'm pretty sure they weren't like, coaching's not for me.

I should be able to figure out this basketball thing on my own.

It's really interesting. I think people in almost every other field, they take pride in coaching.

I even think the best CEOs now, it's almost embarrassing if you don't have an executive coach.

Mm-hmm. And you don't just get your advice on Instagram.

You really have knowledge and learning and you dig in and you feel good about it.

And so, yeah, if something is supposed to be done by pure instinct, then the only explanation for why you're struggling is that you're broken.

Yeah. And I feel very passionately about changing that narrative.

Yeah. And I believe you are. And to that point that you're saying, I mean, I had the fortune of interviewing Kobe Bryant before he tragically passed away around three months before.

And he was so clear about the fact that he just put in more time.

So he was exactly what you're saying. It's reaffirming your point.

He was actually doing double the coaching that everyone else was.

So he was in the gym before everyone got in the gym.

Then he did what everyone else was doing in the gym and then he'd go home and work out again.

And so you've got this person investing in doubling down into coaching as opposed to saying, oh, I'm actually naturally gifted and I don't really need that.

Even after winning two, three, four, and then eventually five championships.

I wanted to ask you about that point because you talk about this idea of parents not being perfect.

Yes. But being good at repairing. Yes. Which I really, really value as an idea because I do think we all want to get it perfect the first time and that's our instinct.

And like you said, the natural instinct, even though we want to get it perfect as a desire, the natural instinct in any of those circumstances is to act out, is to shout, scream, yell, instruct, direct, dictate.

And you gave a few really great anecdotal examples there, but very real ones as well.

Talk to me about what parents instinctually do. so that we just normalize the fact that it's okay because no one's going to get it right the first time.

And then talk to me about how you've repaired that given one of those types of scenarios of going to Aunt Sally's or screaming in the playground.

Great. Repair without a doubt is the most important parenting strategy.

I would say repair is the most important relationship strategy because I think everything we talk about at Good Inside is as relevant in a partnership or at work with yourself, any relationship.

So let's start with this desire to be perfect.

I think this is especially true with moms.

I don't hear it as much from dads, honestly.

And I think this goes back to a lot of gender roles.

I think a lot of us were socialized to be good girls, which I now put in quotes because I realize being a good girl just means... being trained to gaze out and notice what everyone in the world wants from you and to become as distant as possible from gazing in and noticing what you might want for yourself.

That's really what it means. How can I please you?

Yeah. How can I please you? How can I, how can I meet your need before you even have a need?

I noticed you're twitching. You're about to get mad.

I also know you kind of like this kind of drink.

So I'm going to go make you an iced tea and bring it to you, right?

You're looking everywhere and meeting everyone's needs all the time.

Right? And I think a lot of girls, they learn that that's where their value was.

And I think that's where they, therefore, they feel safest.

Right? It's when I'm getting it right for everyone else.

So now we have parenting. Right? I mean, people often ask me, like, is there a perfect parent?

Are you a perfect parent? I am definitely not a perfect parent.

There's no such thing as a perfect parent.

And I just even want to say, I don't even think it would be a good thing for a kid to have a perfect parent.

Because... The dynamic you establish with your kid, the relationship with your kid is the foundation for every relationship they'll have after that.

And I know it's heavy, but it's true, so I'll say it.

The nature of a relationship you develop with your kid is also going to impact who they're even attracted to in adulthood.

Because we're attracted to what feels like home, right?

For better or for worse, as a natural attraction.

Yeah. So I don't think any of us think it's adaptive for a kid to go into the teen, adult years.

Like, who is that person out there who's perfectly attuned to my needs all the time?

Like, I'm sure you and your wife, that's not the way your relationship works.

Definitely not me and my husband, right?

Yeah, definitely not. The best it gets is someone attunes to your needs a lot of the time.

And they take ownership when they don't and don't gaslight you and don't kind of throw you under the bus or blame you for their reaction.

And they repair. And so if we like play that out, right?

Yes, we are... We're humans, not robots.

We have our own emotional life, our own triggers.

And whether it's Aunt Sally's party or being lied to, or even, you know, it's like the end of the night, I think a classic one, and I know this happens for me.

Oh, chicken for dinner? This is disgusting.

And it's like everything you've done for the day and all the moments when you felt invisible and the other things that happened that have nothing to do with your kid, it all completely overflows in your bucket of difficult moments I've had to hold together and you explode at your kid.

You're so ungrateful. You know, what do you mean kids around the world would be, you know, whatever we say, we lecture, you're spoiled.

And it comes out often in a voice that's legitimately scary.

And it's scary in part because our kids need us to survive.

So they're like, wait, parent I need for survival just became scary parent I'm distant from, it's a lot to manage.

So that I would just say is the rupture moment.

And I know this is the moment people listening are like, yep, that's it.

I'm a monster. I've messed up my kid forever.

Those are two different things. Having a rupture moment is not who you are, and it's not your future, and it does not dictate your entire relationship.

Yelling at kids is messes kids up far less than yelling at kids and not repairing after you've yelled.

It's actually the not repairing that's really hard because then kids are left alone with this intense set of feelings.

They're confused and they have to figure out like, how do I feel safe again?

What do I do to move on? And if kids aren't given a story by us to repair, they often make up a story.

And it's often a story of self-blame because that's the only thing they have.

I'm a bad kid. Must be my fault. When you repair with your kid, you actually get to do something magical.

I always tell parents, you actually get to rewrite the ending of that chapter.

Because instead of that one chapter of your kid's book being, I complained about dinner and unleashed the scary voice from my parent and I went to my room and I felt alone and I felt really shaky.

If you picture that as the ending of a chapter, you then get to go in and write, and then my mom came in and she said, I'm sorry I yelled.

It's never your fault when I yell. I'm working on managing my feelings so I respond more calmly even when I'm frustrated.

I love you. It actually changes the way the memory lives in their body.

Those simple words, that approach. Memory is an event, and every other time you've remembered that event, which is why something like therapy is helpful.

It's so interesting. Why is therapy helpful?

My childhood didn't change. But remembering certain things in the context of a new relationship changes the way the original memory works. lives in your body.

You change the story around the memory. And so every time you repair, whether it was a quick, hey, I'm sorry, let me try that again.

I'm sorry for yelling at you earlier. Or hey, I listened to this podcast.

I heard a couple of things and I think there were a lot of years I just sent you to your room.

I think there were a lot of years I never heard your side of the story.

And I'm guessing that just felt really bad.

I'm sorry. And look, we definitely might need time to cool off when things are hot, but I'm going to really try to come to you and better understand instead of judge.

And I want you to know I care about that.

I mean, the way that lands in someone's body to reopen a file and kind of give it a different ending.

Yeah, I believe it's the most powerful thing we can do.

Yeah. Even if they don't react well in the moment.

Yes. And this is what I want to undo the fantasy.

Like I go to my teenage son and I'm like, I'm so prepared.

And, you know, and I picture my teenage son saying, mom, I've been waiting for you to say, no, my teenage son is going to roll his eyes and be like, you're being so weird.

Get out of my room. Yeah. But in a way, a lot of us, when we hear something emotionally resonant in our best kind of moments, we say to someone else, I just need to digest this.

Yes. That's what most kids are saying. Whether it's a toddler saying, I need a snack, or it's my teenager saying, you're being weird, get out of my room.

I really think they're saying, that was a lot.

And I actually just need to kind of push it away for a moment so I can ingest it in my own time.

So I would say, don't take the bait. Trust that it mattered.

Move on. Don't force the conversation. And I have a feeling you'll see evidence of the impact later.

Yeah, the point about repairing really lands well because I was thinking about when we were all learning how to drive, it was inevitable that at some point we'd have an accident.

So you wanted to be mindful. You didn't want to be neglectful when you were a driver and when you were trained.

I've had car accidents and I think I'm a pretty good driver.

I'm assuming with your nodding. Right there with you.

You've had a car accident. My wife's had car accidents.

Thankfully, nothing too dangerous for any of us and anyone I know.

But the reality is you're going to have some sort of an accident.

And the biggest mistake you can make is to not repair your car when you have an accident and just keep driving that car around and getting into more accidents.

And so that lands really, really well because it would be really strange if someone had told me that I was never allowed to scratch my alloys or a rim or a hubcap or a side of my car.

And I had to like drive with that level of, I would probably have an accident simply because I was overthinking the whole thing.

That's right. Or stay in your room all day.

Yeah, you wouldn't even go out. Right? I mean, a life worth living has inherent risk, right?

And so, yeah, I think that's a really good metaphor.

You're going to make mistakes as a parent.

And if you see that as kind of a feature, not a bug, then you can change the focus to, okay, what now?

And look, while we're talking about repair, I think it's important to get in that the One of the biggest things that gets in our way of repairing with our kid is that most of us haven't learned to repair with ourselves.

Because what happens is we do this thing.

I yell at my kid. I say they're spoiled brat.

Whatever happens in the kitchen when my son simply says, maybe it's even just chicken for dinner again, but it's just enough for, you know, it feels like he's telling me I'm a bad mom, you know, or something like that.

So I've done this thing. And for so many people, they might have someone in their life or like this person is so stubborn.

They never apologize. They're so cold hearted.

I see it a little differently. I tend to use like a most generous interpretation, MGI perspective.

I think people who really don't apologize, they have a really hard time separating identity from behavior.

And that idea of separating who we are from what we do, identity from behavior, is like a core principle of good insight and a core way we teach parents to see themselves and their kids, right?

It's the difference between I yelled and I'm a monster versus I am a good parent who had a moment I'm really not proud of.

And I actually find doing that with our hands really powerful because you can see the difference.

I'm a good parent, identity, one hand, who did something I'm not proud of, another hand.

Versus, oh, I yelled, I'm a monster, something's wrong with me.

It's an immediate, there's no separation.

We can't repair from this place. We can't even function from this place.

The saddest thing is we can't learn from this place.

It's shame, right? Shame is an animal defense freeze response.

We all should know, right? When you are frozen, you can't make movement.

And so people who don't apologize, they usually have to hold this thing they did so far away from them.

They can't even look at it because it feels so eviscerating to their identity.

So I actually think a first step for repair, I just yelled at my kid, I mean, very practically for me, if I'm in some shame spiral, I sit somewhere quiet.

It's often my bathroom. I close the door.

I sit in the toilet. I put my hand on my heart, put my feet on the ground.

And I do say to myself a bunch of times, 5, 10, sometimes 20, okay, Becky, I made a mistake.

I'm a good parent who did something I'm not proud of.

Even I'm a good parent who yelled. Like I'm a good parent who forces us as a sentence structure to separate those two things.

And then it's interesting. I'm in a place where I can think about it more.

Also, even before I repair with my kid, what was going on?

I had a really bad day. I honestly haven't worked out in a while.

I know that's something I need to do for myself.

I was really frustrated from work and I honestly just did not take a moment in my lobby to sit down and talk to myself about it.

And you know what? I was probably just a ticking time, Bob.

I need to, a couple of things. I need to look at my calendar and do something for me.

I need to take some deep breaths in the middle of the day.

I need to sit in my lobby before I go upstairs and say what was the most stressful part of my day.

Let me write about it. Let me do something to manage my emotions.

The only reason I can go through that learning process is actually because I've been able to separate what I did from who I was.

And now I can go to my son or my daughter, whoever it is, and actually give them a repair.

And the other thing is when we don't repair with ourself, we do weird repairs with our kids and they're not repairs.

They're either, I'm sorry I yelled, but if you didn't complain about dinner, it wouldn't have happened.

That is not a repair. Or we say something like, I'm sorry I yelled.

It's okay, right? It's okay, right? You forgive me?

We ask our kid to do our job for us. I picture this five-year-old kid who's like, you're asking me to take care of your emotions after you yelled at me?

That is not a relationship pattern we want to establish, right?

Yeah. That resonates so strongly. I feel like if you don't go back and do the separation of the identity and behavior on your own, the kid actually just goes, I'm just not going to say how I feel around mom or dad, or mom's just angry or dad's just mad or whatever.

And then that becomes the label. Whereas when you actually get to go up to them and say, hey, I had a really tough day at work today.

That is an excuse how I behaved with you.

Yeah. I'm really sorry about it. And, you know, yeah.

And, you know, that kind of ability to even get them to have some context without making it their fault.

I think what you're saying, when we repair wrongly, we may give them the context, but make it their fault.

Like, hey, I had a really tough day today.

So if you didn't say chicken wasn't terrible, I would have been fine.

So I hope you understand I had a bad day.

And it's like, oh, well, wait a minute. Like, that's too much for me to handle right now.

That's exactly right. And the thing that always creeps me out in a good way, because it makes me not do this, is I picture my son, I don't know, now he's 30, 40, let's say he's partnered and I'm at his house visiting and he screams at his partner, I don't know, in a nasty way.

And then I hear him say, look, I'm sorry I yelled, but if you had remembered toilet paper like I asked you, I wouldn't have yelled.

I'd be like, ooh, this feels like I don't want to be here.

This is a bad situation. But if I've always repaired in his childhood by saying, I'm sorry I did a bad thing, but look, at the end of the day, your behavior caused me to do that thing.

Why would I be surprised that that's what he takes into the world, right?

And then I just want to answer a question that's, I know not actively being asked, but it comes up every time.

Because parents are like, but can't my kid ask if we could have a different dinner in a nicer way?

Or okay, maybe I didn't yell because my kid didn't listen about putting on his shoes.

But if my kid put on his shoes, it wouldn't have happened.

Help me reconcile. Separate the two things.

I would say do a real repair. And then give yourself very practically like 24 hours.

Have a very different conversation, which might be, look, there's gonna be some days you don't like dinner.

Is there a way you could tell me you don't like dinner that's equally as true for you as it is respectful for someone else?

Or my four-year-old won't put on his shoes or her shoes.

24 hours later after I say sorry, hey, mornings have been really tough for both of us.

I wonder if there's anything we can think about together that would make putting on shoes easier.

I totally understand that's realistic, but just don't collapse them together.

Yeah, that's the point. Yeah. Usually, again, we do extremes.

We either disappear and hope that tomorrow is a new day, which doesn't work, it sounds like.

Or we try and do everything in that first go at it and then it collapses too.

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Thanks for taking a moment for that. Now back to the discussion.

You've said this before, which I really like this idea of they're not giving me a hard time.

They're having a hard time. Yes. And that differentiates really powerful because I think our languages, they're giving me a hard time.

Yeah. I mean, look, I'm sure you think about this in so many other contexts and it's the same as parenting.

But to me, when you're in conflict with anybody, You have one of two mindsets, okay?

The first mindset, and let's say it's us, where it's like I'm on one side of the table and Jay is on the other side of the table.

And I'm just looking at you like you are the problem.

And we wouldn't have a problem if you just came to my side and did something more like me, right?

The other mindset is different. Instead of me against you where you're the problem, it's me and you on the same side of the table against Jay. a problem.

I actually think in business, in marriage, with your in-laws, definitely with your kids, you literally shouldn't have a conversation about something conflictual until you can get yourself in the me and this person against a problem mindset.

My kid is giving me a hard time is such a good example of me against you. my kid is having a hard time is me end you against a problem.

And I love strategies and scripts. I'm sure we'll get into more of them.

I love all those things, but they all fall flat at the end of the day if you're not operating in an effective mindset.

And to me, the most important thing a parent can do when they're in a tricky situation with their kid, oh, mornings are so tough.

My kid is giving me a hard time. They won't get out the door.

Oh, I hear that phrase, giving me a hard time.

How can I get into a me and my kid against a problem, me and my kid on the same team perspective?

Because then I can think about it very differently.

What might be getting in the way of my kid getting out the door?

I guess they're going to school. Maybe getting out the door, they're a smart kid.

They kind of know as soon as they put their shoes on, they're saying bye to daddy.

Maybe that's it. And all of a sudden, something happens when you get in the same team mindset.

I think we always love our kids, but when we're in an opposite team mindset, nobody likes to say this, but we stop liking them in the moment.

And there is nothing that is a strategy that will matter more than the fact that your kid just feels that from you.

When we're on the same team, like something amazing happens.

You start liking your kid again. Now it's like a problem to solve together and everything becomes more effective from there.

What's been the hardest personal situation for you where you feel like you've just been in that zone where you yelled or you didn't like them or you were just repairing?

What was the hardest for you personally that took you the most time to get back to this?

I mean, it happens. I just want to say...

I feel like parenting is more like yoga than anything else.

Like people who are really into yoga are like, it's the practice.

Like there's no destination. So I'm happy to share some stories and I will, but I don't want anyone to think like, oh, that was then and this is now, right?

Like this is a constantly evolving muscle and our kids are always changing, right?

So- You know, one of my kids, my deeply feeling kid where she feels things more intensely, the explosions are more intense, and there can be huge reactions to things that seem small on the surface.

Going to a birthday party, not having the chair she wants, not watching a family movie that everyone else wants to watch, right?

And it can feel in the time like, why are you being so difficult?

Mm-hmm. right? Versus, hold on, she's having a hard time with something.

By the way, I want to say, that doesn't mean I need to cater to that.

Like, it's not like she doesn't want to sit in this chair.

So, hey, everyone, get up so your sister can always have the chair she wants, or, oh, we're going to watch the movie she wants.

I actually don't believe in that. But again, if that's the boundary part over here, what can be hard, yeah, is getting back to, hold on, She's a good kid who's having a hard time.

I think that phrase to me that I put out in the world is like one of the most important phrases just to like practice at random times in your head.

I have a good kid who's having a hard time.

It becomes like a little song. In the same way as I'm a good parent who's having a hard time.

And then I mean, I think I have a kid who's getting older, who's a teen.

I mean, it's tricky. You feel rejected. It feels like it's on their time schedule.

Like, I want to talk to my kid all day. And, you know, he doesn't.

He's doing his things. He's with his friends.

And then it's 9.45, and I'm actually tired.

And maybe I'll get to bed early. And he's like, Mom, I want to talk.

And, you know, my first reaction is a little like, Yeah, I've been around all day.

Yeah, like what? Like, oh, now that you want to talk, like, you know, and I kind of want to retaliate for something, right?

And then I try to take a deep breath on my good days and say, this is adolescence.

His job is to separate from me. He's trying to figure that out.

It's messy. He is supposed to be exploring the world.

But I always think with adolescence, like they need to be explorers, not nomads.

But when we take them so personally and then refuse to connect, we're actually just leaving them. as nomads, which is someone without a home base.

It's like, right. He's a teen. He's doing his job.

Let me take a deep breath. I have five minutes.

Let me go to his room. Right. I think that's what it kind of like looks like in real life.

Yeah. If I, as a dad, when I have a child, if they came up to me and they really were excited about something, they wanted to share it.

And I was busy with work. And I said, Hey, I just can't talk about that right now.

Yeah. What impact does that have? First of all, I think there's some, I don't know, narrative out there.

Like as a parent, we should be some type of always martyr, right?

Like you're in the middle of a project. I'm making this up.

You're like, you're, you know, we're similar.

Like you have some idea. I got to get it down and it's going to, whatever it is, you know, you're creating something, you're working on something.

A good parent is someone who drops that at every second to look at my kid's art project.

I I don't buy it. I don't buy it. Now, do I think a good parent is someone who would never do that?

Obviously not. Again, there's a middle ground.

I think like most relationships, it's about the how.

Can't you see I'm working? This is ridiculous.

This is a Lego tower. It's kind of stupid.

I have a big job. I wouldn't recommend that.

That's not going to feel good. Okay? But if that's one extreme and the dropping... you know, all the time is the other.

I think what's in the middle, like kind of the sturdiness we talk about is, wow, it looks like you're working on something really interesting.

I really want to see it. You know what's crazy?

I'm working on something really interesting and I need five minutes to finish it.

I'm going to need those five minutes actually in silence, which is going to be a little annoying.

I'm going to ask you to leave my office and close the door.

And I promise you right after that, I'm going to come and I'm not going to have my phone.

And I want to see this thing you built and hear all about it.

There's this kind of Almost wash, rinse, repeat that I think in these moments where boundaries and empathy and connection, they're really not an either or.

So many models of parenting have been one or the other.

And I think at Good Insight, we bring them together.

And I think, you know, I don't know. I think about people who work in an office and they want to talk to their CEO.

And that's what you want to hear from someone.

I actually don't want a CEO all the time.

It's like, I'm going to drop everything.

Of course. Right? Or, you know, you're on a plane.

Yeah. right? And, you know, you want to visit the pilot with, you know, with your kid or something, right?

And they're getting the plane ready. You don't want to pilot who they're getting everything ready.

They're like, sure, come on in. You're like, were you just fixing that engine?

Like, you know, hey, I'm in the middle of something.

This is really important. I see your interest.

That's awesome. I'll let you know when it's ready.

And then we'll do that. That combination, boundaries and empathy, to me, that's always magic.

Yeah, it was funny. I was thinking, I was thinking of my kid coming, running up to me and be like, go away.

I've got to interview Dr. Becky Kennedy on the podcast about how to be a good parent.

Like, I'm like, that's the, no, and I, and I appreciate that because that to me is just, and I, I'm, that's really reaffirming to hear because I feel like.

That's just having good, healthy adult conversations.

That's what it is. And it's giving context and it's providing a perspective on why and what and where we're at.

It's not just like, hey, I don't have time right now.

I'm doing something really important. There's a validation of them, but there's a validation of yourself.

And again, they may not react well to that.

They may, when you come back downstairs, they might be like, I'm not doing it anymore. right like that's right i don't care anymore like right it was it's done it's broken like that's right or again like when i set some of the boundaries i feel really proud of with my kid take a different example right like my kid is watching tv and the show is over and i told them they could watch that one episode and it's over and i have the remote because that's the thing it's like we leave our kid with the remote and we're surprised we have power struggles they shouldn't have the remote, right?

Because of course they're going to want to watch more.

They're good kids who are addicted to TV like the rest of us.

But let's say it's at the end and my kid's like, one more, one more.

Maybe for whatever reason I've decided it's really over tonight.

Okay. This is like sturdy leadership in action.

I might say, look, I get it. It's so hard to stop watching TV.

Honestly, it's hard for me too. It's kind of designed to feel like it's not enough.

You want to watch the next episode, something like that.

Or, hey, you wish you could watch another one.

Keep it simple. Next part. And TV time is over.

I actually have the remote. I'm going to turn it off.

I get it. That's annoying. If I do that in my house, I fear, and it's a fear, that people hearing me think I do that and my kids like stand up and applause.

Yeah. And they were like, that was A-plus parenting.

I'm so lucky to have you. You're keeping me safe from technology and you're validating my feelings.

That has never happened one time. Actually, what's important for parents to know, when you set a true boundary, I'm happy to talk about this because I think people get boundaries all wrong, what they are.

But when you set a true boundary, especially if your kid isn't used to it, your kid always responds in the same way.

A tantrum. That is your big reward as a parent.

Like, you're like, I just did the thing.

And this is the next thing. Like, where is the confetti?

No confetti. Okay. But if you actually know that your kid's tantrum is a sign that you did actually set a true boundary, you become a lot less reactive to it because unconsciously we think our kid's tantrum is a sign we're doing a bad job as a parent.

Our kid's tantrum is often a sign we set a boundary and they're upset about it, which then means we can just do the next part of our job.

We can validate, oh, I know, you wish you were an adult and could decide whatever number of TV shows you wanted to watch, but you better bet even as I'm saying that, I'm not.

That's not happening. Boundary, they get upset.

We can validate. We hold the boundary kind of over and over.

And where's like any emotional, is there any hugging?

Is there like affection? Yeah, I think everyone's kid is different.

One of my kids might really want that. Oh, I know.

It stinks. Come here. You know, and I'm hugging, right?

Because that's what happens in the best relationships, right?

Where if I, I don't know if, if, I was making not so good decisions for myself, even as an adult.

I don't know, I'm at a party and I'm like seeing you and I'm like, Jay, I hate you.

Your podcast stinks. And my husband was there.

I would hope he'd like pick me up and carry me out and sit with me in a room, not because that's something he did to me, because it was something he would do for me.

And then maybe even there, I'd be like, I had a bad day.

And he'd be like, I know. Yeah. You had a rough time at Jay's party.

I was not your best, right? So yeah, maybe I'm hugging another one of my kids and be like, get away from me.

And I might just kind of stay where I am and say nothing because my calm presence is the version of connection she might want, right?

So I think that's where, what I really love about Good Inside and what I see from like our members is they're like, I love that they've taken the principles and then they take their unique knowledge and their unique values, their unique awareness of what's happening and they apply it in a way that feels totally them.

Yeah, I agree. I think the challenge we've created is that we think effective communication is when you get the perfect reaction.

Yes. And I don't think that's true as a parent or as an adult or in any capacity because you could communicate something really exceptionally effectively and the reaction is not... the direct response to whether you communicated effectively or not.

We think if the kid did applaud or there was confetti or they turned around and said, okay, mom, I'll go to bed.

We think that's a good day, right? So it's almost this idea of, and this again applies to marriage too.

You almost feel like when the person's just responding to you saying, you're amazing, well done.

Or even if it's not that forward, the idea of I'm doing everything you tell me to, we see as a sign of good communication.

I see something very similar with so many parents, and I think this is maybe the biggest thing we love to help shift.

We use our kids' behavior or their reactions as a barometer of whether we're a good parent.

And we lose ourselves in the process because we're so busy gazing out. versus gazing in.

What's a version of gazing in? Is this a decision I believe in?

Do I feel like I'm actually being a good leader?

Do I feel like this is a decision maybe not only for today, but for every once in a while when we have the energy, a decision that really helps our kid become the kind of teen and adult we'd want them to be?

So I heard this story from a parent the other day.

It was really interesting. It was kind of this classic public meltdown, birthday party.

Her kid Only wanted to sit next to the birthday party kid.

I get this. It's a big thing. Sitting next to the birthday party kid is a big deal.

Pizza time came because everyone has pizza at their birthday parties.

Her kid had to go to the bathroom. And she's like, this is not going to be good because I know after the bathroom, that seat next to my kid with elbow, that's going to be gone.

It was gone. Okay. Major public meltdown.

I have to have that seat. I need that seat.

Meanwhile, it's like this kid's birthday party.

So many times I see this lack of sturdiness.

I see I'm making up this name. Nora, Nora, we don't yell at other people's birthday parties.

I mean, it is actually so sad to witness because kids need us to embody our authority.

I would say, I couldn't say it's authority without aggression, which almost feels like an oxymoron these days.

It's rarely modeled, but it's authority without aggression.

Now, this mom was telling me this story and she goes, you know, it's interesting.

A number of months ago, I had a family dinner.

My child had this major meltdown. It was the worst day of my week.

I felt like it was my biggest parenting fail.

Here's what's crazy. I knew exactly what to do.

I picked her up. First, I pulled her to the side.

I said, oh, this is a hard time. Look, this is a birthday party.

That seat's not available. These others are.

It just escalated further and further. And as a parent, sometimes you know this is past the point of no return.

This is not going to be a good situation.

So I knew what to do. I picked her up. I said, Nora, I'm picking you up.

I'm carrying you to the car. We're just not going to be able to finish this birthday party today.

You're a good kid having a hard time. You're not in trouble.

I'm going to help you through this. Her kid, no, give me another chance.

But she was far gone, carried her to the car.

They drove away, they got home. And she said to me, is it weird that that was my parenting win?

I just thought it was so beautiful. I don't think that's weird.

I don't think that's weird at all. To me, the biggest wins we have in parenting and in so many parts of life or when we shift from my job is to avoid all turbulence to I actually know exactly what to do in the turbulence.

And when you know what to do in the turbulence, which takes practice and learning and support and never being perfect, you actually feel stronger having piloted a plane through that storm and safely gotten to ground rather than the anxiety of like- I just need to avoid it.

Yeah, that's so, we feel so fragile when we're doing that.

You've said before that It's not your job to make your kids happy, which applies to what you're saying right now.

Yeah. And what is a parent's job? So I think I want to talk about both those things.

Let's start with the parent's job and then why not only isn't our job to make our kids happy, but why it's actually a really bad thing for them.

The idea of a parent's job has actually come up for me because over and over I'd see people in my private practice and, you know, now through Instagram, different things.

And they'd be like, my kid is having a tantrum.

My kid is so mean to her brother. My kid won't do his homework, whatever the situation was.

And I'd say, okay, look, all parents want to do a good job.

I know that. But I'd always say to a parent, just tell me, what is your job?

Forget if you can perform it well. What is your job?

Every parent would look at me. no idea.

And then I think about just offices. Like I picture someone coming to their job the first day and their boss saying, do a good job.

And the person saying, but I don't have a job description.

By the way, I also don't even know what that dude does over there.

I kind of need to know what that person's lane is.

I definitely need to know what my job is if I'm going to do it well.

So I think any parent listening is like, it's true.

What is my job? If you don't know, then there's immense clarity.

Forget trying to do it well. We just have to have the clarity and the foundation.

Absolutely. So I think a parent always has two jobs.

It's almost every situation. And I'll define one of them, which we didn't get to yet.

So setting boundaries and validating your kid's emotions.

And they go hand in hand. Setting boundaries is widely misunderstood.

I'll share what my definition of boundaries are, which is as applicable to adults as it is to kid.

Boundaries are something you tell someone you will do, and they require the other person to do nothing.

Mm-hmm. We often say, this person doesn't respect my boundaries.

To me, with respect, it's often a sign that someone has an inaccurate definition of a boundary because you're giving all your power to the other person.

So I often ask a parent, well, what do you mean your kid isn't listening?

Yeah. I live in New York City. This is like my kid.

And I always say when I go into the elevator buttons, don't press the buttons.

Don't press all the buttons. And then my kid goes and presses all the buttons.

He does not respect my boundaries. He has a listening problem.

Now, If you have a kid like one of my kids who is 0% people pleasing, it's going to take a little bit longer than other kids to manage urges, okay?

A boundary isn't don't press the button.

Is that something I'm telling my kid I will do?

No. Does it require my kid to do nothing?

No, I'm giving all of my power to my four-year-old.

A boundary would be saying, hey, when we go into the elevator, I'm going to be between you and the buttons.

I know it's fun to press the button, sweetie.

It's just not something I'm going to allow.

And yep, even if you lunge for it, I'm going to block you.

That, it's true. It's like, you got to get like your, like karate, like there's some moves.

I'll teach you now. Remarkably, like kind of, you know, some interesting dance moves going on, but that's a boundary.

It's not something I'm doing to my kid. I'm doing it for him.

So I don't let him feel like an out of control kid.

And this is important. So I don't let myself get so frustrated that I end up yelling random punishments.

I have no intention of keeping anyway, no dessert tonight.

And then I'm like, Actually, you can have dessert.

I don't even care. I don't want you to have a tantrum.

This is what we do. So that's part of our job, setting true boundaries.

Another great example of this, my kid takes the iPad when it's not iPad time.

First thing to a question, I'm like, how?

They're like, what do you mean how? He just takes it.

If it's not iPad time, why does your kid even have access to where the iPad is?

A boundary without words would be what I do.

It's not, hey, don't touch the iPad in the kitchen.

I'm sorry. I'm just going to speak for myself.

If my phone is in a room and someone tells me not to look at it Yeah, you're looking at it, yeah.

I'm just not that, I don't have a great hit rate there.

Those things are very addictive, okay? And I have more self-control than my five-year-old, right?

A boundary would be saying, hey, from now on, just so you know, the iPad is going to completely out of reach, out of sight.

It's not because I don't trust you. It's because those things are actually built to draw your whole body to them.

It really wasn't fair for me to put it somewhere and ask you not to get it.

So it's just going to be away until it's iPad time.

When it's over, it will shut off and then I'll put it back in that place.

Done. That's part of our job. The other part of our job is connecting to our kids' feelings, is seeing our kids' feelings as real while not allowing those feelings to overpower us.

That is so important. People think validating a kid's emotions means agreeing with their emotions.

It does not. My kid is having a grilled cheese.

They always like it cut into rectangles.

These things matter. And I cut it into rectangles.

And today is the day my kid's like, I need it in triangles, right?

Whatever it is. Now, to me, I know, intellectually, I'm like, this feels crazy.

I actually thought about how to cut it. I cut it in a rectangle.

That's how you usually like it. But I have to agree.

Who knows what this is really about? Validation would just be, you really wish it was in a triangle today.

Or, oh, this feels really bad. Oh, it feels like the grilled cheese isn't even going to be yummy when it's cutting this way.

People often think if I do that, that means I'm making a new grilled cheese.

Depending on the day, if I want to, maybe I will, but maybe I won't because I'm holding the boundary.

But validation is simply seeing someone else's experience as real for them.

And I think when you think about those two jobs, boundaries and validation, the reason they're so important is I kind of profoundly believe that kids are always asking two questions.

Am I safe? And our boundaries answer that.

And am I real? Because kids have such intense feelings.

I mean, you and I have intense feelings.

And the thing about feelings that's so fascinating is when you fall and skin your knee, you see blood.

So you're like, oh, that's painful. But then you often have some representation of how it's real.

Well, I'm bleeding or I have a black and blue.

Feelings are very unique. They are such visceral sensations coursing through your body. without any external manifestation.

And there's no blood test to tell you you're having anger.

So that's very confusing for kids. And so part of what happens for kids when they're feeling intense emotions is we sometimes take the bait too much about the concrete thing they're upset about.

What they're really trying to figure out, which is really the basis of confidence, is are the things that I am perceiving, feeling in my body, Are those things real?

Because I have to know if they're real before I can learn how to manage them.

I feel like a lot of people think that their job is to make their kids good people or to be successful or to do well or be able to survive the real world when they grow up.

Would you say that, am I safe and am I real?

Which I love those questions. Would you say that boundaries and validation almost will help do all those things?

I think that's a beautiful question because I guess I'm zoomed in to often like, well, what is my job in the moment?

And I think what you're saying is like, what is my goal for my kid?

I have those goals for my kid. I want them to be resilient, which really means I want them to be able to handle challenges and know that they can bounce back from hard things.

I want them to be able to tolerate discomfort, not avoid it or look for the quickest exit from it.

I want my kid to feel really at home in their body.

I want my kid to feel confident, which to me has nothing to do with feeling good about yourself.

It's actually about self-trust, which is why it goes back to feeling like your feelings are real and feeling like you are a better perceiver of your feelings than other people are for you.

Yeah. Yes, I do believe, of course, there's a lot more nuance, but in general, setting boundaries, staying connected to your kid by validating their emotions.

There's other things too, right? Supporting them in their struggle, not rescuing, asking yourself pretty often, am I still doing things for my kid that they can start to learn how to do for themselves?

And how can I slowly back away? How can I set my kid up for capability, not fragility, right?

There's other things, but in general, yes, I think boundaries and validation when paired together, They do.

That's what makes for really resilient adults.

I would agree with you. And I've never heard it that way before.

And I really like that because I think sometimes when we think, well, I want to have kind kids and then we're trying to model kindness for them.

But the problem is if kindness is free of boundary and free of validation, or kindness looks like validation with no boundaries to us.

That's right. And then they're not getting kindness because they don't know what self-kindness looks like.

And they only see the martyr or the self-sacrifice version of kindness, quote unquote.

And then that isn't an accurate form of kindness.

Now they think kindness means I'll do things for people even if they exploit, abuse, or don't have any set of understanding with me.

So they don't become a kind person. They become someone that people take advantage of.

I think that's really poignant, right? And look, it's true.

I think this thing people say flippantly, like I'll be at a dinner or something, you know?

And someone's like, don't you just want your kids to be happy?

And I always picture my husband being like, Becky, please don't ruin.

That was just a throwaway comment. Like, don't.

This is amazing. Don't be a bummer, you know?

And then like half the time I listen, half the time I'm like, actually, it's not what you want.

And everyone's like, what? what? And I'm like, sorry, I just can't help myself.

But, and again, we love as humans, we hear someone say, no, that's not true.

And then people will say to me, you want your kids to be unhappy?

Obviously not. There's again, so much in between two extremes.

But here's the thing about optimizing for happiness in childhood.

I firmly believe, and I've seen it over and over, that the more you optimize for happiness in childhood, the more you actually wire for anxiety in adulthood.

Explain that. Let's take a situation that happens often, and then I'll zoom out, but I think the stories matter.

I'm the only one in my class who can't read.

My kid comes home and says this. First of all, let me just say, this is so painful.

Seeing your kid in pain as a parent, it's so painful.

I think a lot of our instinct is, let me make my kid happy.

And we all, me too, I will say the craziest things ever.

I'm like, well, Bobby isn't even good at lacrosse.

At least you're good at lacrosse. That's going to matter more.

And I'm like, why am I throwing Bobby under the bus?

What did Bobby do? He's like a totally nice kid.

Whatever it is, we say nutty things, right?

And so I'm the only one in class who can't read, right?

And so I think an image helps here a lot because it explains why we don't want to make them happy and it explains resilience and anxiety at once.

So the way I think I want someone to imagine this is your kid is kind of wandering around a garden and there's benches in this garden, right?

A lot of them. And right now they're on the bench of, I'm the only one who can't read.

But I think you and I, Jay, we know that's not really the bench.

The bench is, I see people who are able to do things I can't do, or I feel jealous, or I feel less than.

And the truth is, that is a bench you will sit on at various times for the rest of your life.

Yeah, that feeling of... Everyone else can read better than me is something you're going to feel at college, at work.

Or maybe it's, I wasn't invited to, you know, whoever's birthday party.

You know what? You're going to, I'm not included in something.

I don't have that popular belonging the rest of your life.

So if I picture my kid on this bench, I think as parents, we often have two instincts.

Number one, we try to, we try to convince our kid that their bench isn't their bench.

That can't be true. you can't be the only one not reading yet.

Even though our kid is kind of like telling us, right?

Which over time, if that's the pattern, creates a ton of self-distrust.

Oh, maybe other people know how to perceive my world better than I know how to perceive this world, all in the name of trying to not make my kid uncomfortable.

Or we see a sunny bench on that side of the garden and we're kind of like, just come, you're an amazing lacrosse player.

You're the fastest kid, but you're an amazing artist.

And all of that can be true. But if you think about, to me, what anxiety is, I don't think anxiety is a feeling as much as it's a running away from a feeling.

It's kind of the experience of I don't want to be feeling the way I am right now.

So a kid is wiring up their body, they're understanding how the world works, and they're understanding in childhood what feelings and experiences are tolerable and what feelings and experiences are intolerable.

The latter become anxiety. So, mom, I'm the only one who can't read.

And I'm like, oh, that's not true. Or, you know, I just kind of fix it right away or I throw them a party to make them distracted.

So what does my kid learn in their body?

I was feeling disappointed less than. And what kids wire next is our response.

And what comes next is escape into happiness, escape into distraction.

And if we think about this bench, my kid is sitting on this bench.

And I think we're all in those moments just looking for someone to sit down next to us.

Because the thing is, if my parent can sit on this bench with me, it can't be as awful as I think it is.

It literally can't. If they yank me from it or try to convince me it's not true, what they're really saying is, you're feeling upset.

But I can't really connect to the part of you that feels this way.

I can't do that. That is so scary for a kid because they're like, I guess this really is bad.

And so in the name of kind of making our kid happy, what we really do is we develop a whole range of emotions our kids learn are intolerable.

And if we think about what anxiety is later on, kind of, okay, so let's say this kid later on, and again, this is not one intervention.

This would be many, many patterns, right?

But whenever a kid is upset, optimize for happiness, optimize for happiness.

I think the thing we realize at a certain age, it's different for everyone, 14, 18, 30, 50, whatever it is, is when I'm really upset about something and something doesn't go my way, There actually isn't always an off ramp to happy.

Like when I get fired from my job, I'm not going to be happy in an hour.

I mean, and I mean this, I mean, but seriously, I guess maybe if I go to drugs, I'll be happy right away.

I mean, maybe if I have something else, but feelings don't work that way.

Yeah. And, and there's no one, I don't think who's just given me a new job.

Like, and so by the time I get to those hard moments in adult life, either I've developed the ability to cope with feelings or, Or I'm so accustomed to always expecting happiness that ironically, the way I feel my distress is even more intense because the gap is so big, right?

It's kind of like the light goes on of distress and I've always expected it to go totally off.

I don't even have a dimmer switch anymore.

It's just on is horrible and I need it to go off.

When I think about what that means, and then I like to give parents, like, an alternative.

My kid says, I'm the only new in my class who can't read.

I actually think there's three lines. It's a script.

Yeah, that can, like, really embody the idea of what I say.

Like, we always say a good inside the feelings bench.

Sit on the bench. Sit on the bench. And you become a bench warmer, right?

So the first one is just, I'm so glad you're talking to me about this.

This is so powerful in marriage, too. Yeah.

Or work, you know? Hey, I feel like you've been on your phone a lot, and I don't know, I feel really disconnected.

Imagine if the first thing your partner says back is, I'm so glad you're talking to me about this.

What you're actually saying in a deep attachment way is, the part of you who feels this way is attachable to me.

I'm sitting with you. I'm so glad you're talking to me about this.

Yeah, they were handing out books, and everyone got chapter books, and I got this baby picture book.

Ugh. The second line, ultimate confidence builder is just, I believe you.

We can talk more about that. I think those are the three most important lines in parenting often, just, I believe you.

And then the third is going to feel remarkably unsophisticated, but it's so powerful.

It's just, tell me more. Tell me more. Oh, yeah.

And then it was like me in a reading group of one and my friends were on this other reading group.

And the amazing thing that happens 99% of the time.

I'm so glad you're talking to me about this.

I believe you. Tell me more. Your kid then tells you the story.

What you're really saying is I'm on the bench with you.

I'm not afraid of this bench. I don't need to take you to a sunny bench.

I'm here. How bad could a bench be if I'm willing to sit on it?

I'm not going to let us both self-destruct.

I am here. And then what happens 99% of the time truly in this visual is your kid gets off the bench before you do.

They literally, like I've seen this a million times.

My kids are like, oh, can I have that snack now?

And I'm like, I'm sorry, what? Oh, okay.

Like you just wanted to know that I could tolerate this, that I could be with you in this.

And then what we do in their body is not with a story because the story is just a representation of a feeling.

Disappointment, jealousy, embarrassment, whatever it is, has a little bit more of a container and a home that So the next time a kid feels that feeling, it's not as panicky as a home.

And if you think about your body as all these jars of feelings, and this is the irony about happiness, the more jars we have to contain different parts of our distress, the more space there is for happiness.

Anyway. Yeah, that's a beautiful visual as well.

It's a really nice thing to think about.

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