So I had the pleasure of meeting Maya Shankar at TED.
That's right, we are both TED speakers in 2023.
We were both nervous and somehow we came upon each other and said,
wait, I think I recognize you.
And we just struck up a conversation.
Maya is the best.
She's one of those people.
That is so many things at once.
She's brilliant, she's thoughtful, she's reflective, she's so warm and so generous,
she's a cheerleader, she's a thought leader, and she is the host of a slight change of
plans, which was named Best Show of the Year by Apple in 2021.
Her show features intensely on his conversations with people whose lives have been upended by
a big change, like illness, loss, disaster, heartbreak, and this season, the show is
focused on parenthood.
And we all know that that is an ultimate big change in our life.
I was invited to talk to Maya for this series on parenthood and I want to share the episode
with you today, right here.
After listening, please know you can follow a slight change of plans wherever you listen
to podcasts to hear Maya's other conversations.
I recommend the one with Brenne Brown about her evolving relationship with parenting,
the one with Professor Allison Gopnik on the science of how babies learn and what that
can teach us about creativity and other stories from other parents.
I just know you're going to love Maya's show as much as I do.
You can find a slight change of plans wherever you get your podcasts.
Okay, big exciting announcement.
We are giving the good inside potty program away for free.
That's right.
Get our two steps for potty success.
That includes a potty workshop and a potty reference guide because I know parents need
something to reference in, well, the messy moments that sometimes accompany the potty
process.
Now, you might be wondering, why is this free?
What's the catch?
There's no catch.
I feel so confident that our potty program will take the stress out of this milestone for
you and your kid and it will actually give you and your kid feelings of empowerment and
confidence.
And I want every single family to go through this milestone with that type of positivity.
To unlock the good inside free potty program, follow the link in show notes and enter your
email.
And I can't wait to hear your success stories.
I want to talk about a group of kids that I'm particularly passionate about.
Why?
Because I think these kids are some of the most misunderstood kids in the world.
I see these kids as deeply feeling kids and the world tends to see these kids as oppositional,
defiant kids.
What are the kids I'm talking about?
They're the ones who have explosive meltdowns.
They're the ones who tend to yell, I hate you.
Go away when you know they actually need your help.
They're the ones who will trip and fall and then blame you even though you were not around
them at the time.
These kids are misunderstood because they're seen for their difficult behaviors instead
of for their underlying core struggles.
And because of this difference, I really went to work a while ago and created a completely
different approach for these kids.
An approach that parents tell me leads to the first time they've ever understood their
kid and then the first time they've ever seen productive change in their home.
I want to make sure you know about my upcoming live, deeply feeling kid workshop.
You're going to get an approach that makes you say, oh my goodness, this is my kid and
then you're going to get a set of strategies that actually work.
First things first, follow the link in show notes to see if your child is a DFK and see
exactly how we can help.
All of it is available within membership at goodinside.com.
I can't wait to connect with you inside.
The only true strategy we ever have with our kids is our relationship with them.
Our kids will all get to an age and it's all sooner than we think where they're basically
like, wait, I'm big now, like you literally can't put me in a timeout and I literally don't
give two shits about your stickers.
Like seriously, that's what they're going to say.
And so the only thing between us is the quality of our relationship.
Dr. Becky Kennedy is a clinical psychologist known for her parenting advice and her core
message is this, when we punish kids for their behavior, they may internalize the feeling
that they're bad inside and can't change.
Behavior is not identity.
Like there's a good kid, an in-paying kid, probably a smart kid, a freaking funny kid,
underneath these really difficult behaviors.
And I think when you start seeing that, you intervene totally differently in a way that
feels better to the kid and the parent and honestly in a way that also is just much
more effective for behavior change.
In today's episode, Dr. Becky helps us rethink parenting for the benefit of both kids and
adults.
I'm Maya Shankar and this is a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who
we become in the face of a big change.
Becky is the founder of Good Inside, a company that helps parents navigate the often challenging
experience of raising kids.
Good Inside is also her recommended parenting strategy.
She says parents should start with the assumption that their kids are good at their core.
This might sound like a philosophical point, but Becky says it's actually a radical shift
in mindset that can change how parents react when their kids misbehave.
What I love about Becky's approach is how you can apply it to all kinds of relationships.
I'm not a parent, but I found myself thinking through these strategies and the context of
my relationships with my coworkers and as an aunt to my nephews and nieces.
Okay, now onto my conversation with Becky.
I'd love to rewind the clock to this one day back in 2014.
You're a therapist for parents struggling with kids who are misbehaving, screaming, hitting,
name calling, you name it.
Tell me more, Becky, about what you had been taught to recommend to these parents and
then how things shifted for you on that one day.
Yeah, so I was seeing parents who had come to me for hitting.
Their kid was in a hitting stage and also not listening and all these things.
I was teaching the parents how to give a timeout.
The program I was trained in, which was very esteemed.
It was kind of like the one to go to around us.
I was really all about timeouts, punishment, consequences, sticker charts, brazing.
So I was teaching them how to give a timeout.
But as I was talking, I had this very uncomfortable feeling in my body.
I was feeling awake and describe it.
My heart was kind of racing.
It was loud enough in my body that I kind of had to slow down for what is going on.
Probably for the past couple of months at that point, I'd started becoming a little skeptical
about this approach.
I'm like the months before because I was like, this is so weird.
Everything I know helps adults change their lives.
It's kind of theoretically at odds with everything I'm telling parents to do with kids.
I don't know.
It just didn't make sense to me that that would be like that.
But I was like, I don't know.
Keep going, keep going.
And this day, the skepticism just reached a breaking point.
I just said to them, I'm sorry, this is super awkward.
I actually don't believe anything I'm telling you right now.
And I'll never forget their look.
They were like, WTF.
You came highly recommended to us.
You don't believe what you're telling us, well, do believe something else.
And I remember being like, I know there's a different way.
I just, I don't know what that is yet.
But I still kind of right now feel like this isn't it.
And I don't know.
It's kind of like all I've got right now.
And maybe we can meet in a couple of weeks.
And they were like, yeah, just give us our money back.
Like, we're not coming back here.
It's, you know, I don't blame them.
I would be like, yeah, I don't think so.
Like, this is the weirdest session.
But in that moment, I was just like, this isn't it.
And it just, it kind of like flew out of me.
There was something that I read about your experience that day,
which really struck me, which is that you noticed that you
empathized with these misbehaving kids quite a lot.
Like, you liked that.
Yeah.
I feel like the kids with the worst behavior
are the kids in the most pain.
You know, you're talking about like a four year old or a seven year old
is kind of like trying to wave a flag the best way they can,
which is like, well, I know I can get people's attention
from hitting or something and I'm so out of control.
And I feel like their desperate calls for help.
So I think I have a lot of empathy.
I was like, oh, this is a kid who's in so much need
and there's so much pain.
And then they tend to get the opposite
of what they're in a very unsophisticated way asking for.
And so after that session, I was just like, wait,
I don't think I believe in timeouts.
But why?
Like, what if we just strip back every assumption that we have?
What are we left with?
So here's one assumption.
If you don't punish a kid's behavior,
you're basically telling them that the behavior is okay.
Parents hate this all the time.
Why?
Like, if I yelled at my husband and he was like,
whoa, that's not okay.
And also you must be upset.
Let's get to the bottom of this.
Do I think he's approving of my behavior?
Like, no, that's absurd.
So another assumption we often have
is our kids are kind of deliberately doing things
to piss us off or they could do better and they're not.
I don't buy it.
I just don't buy it.
My kid doing something in the moment isn't about
them giving me a hard time.
It's probably about them having a hard time,
massive difference.
And so I feel like I was left with one single truth.
And the only truth I was left with is kids are good inside.
Inherently they come into the world good inside.
And if that was the only thing I thought about first.
And now I've kind of taken away all the floors
of this other building.
And that's my only foundation.
What is a brand new building I would create
from that foundation?
Yeah.
So there's many pragmatic benefits, Becky,
to taking this approach and shifting your philosophy
around the nature of your kids.
And to me the most important one is that when we assume kids
are good inside and we are able to separate their behaviors
from their identity, it allows us to be curious about why
they're engaging in bad behavior rather than simply trying
to shape the behavior or even worse accepting it as fixed.
So can you talk a little bit more about that curiosity?
Yes.
So everyone listening to this, if you put your hands out
in front of you and you look at just one hand,
and we'll say about your kid, but it could be about an adult
or anyone.
Let's say it's my son.
This is who my son is.
I'm looking at one hand.
This is his identity.
And then you put your other hand further away.
So there's space and you look at that hand
and you say, this is my son's latest bad behavior.
It might be he hit or he said, I hate you
or he lied to your face.
OK.
And then you look at the first hand and you're like,
this is who he is.
And the other hand, this is what he did.
And it's really important to keep those hands separate.
Because what we tend to do is let's say,
we'll take some super triggering for a parent.
Like I just said to my kid, did you just knock down
your sister's tower?
By the way, I just saw him with my own eyes.
Knock down his sister's tower.
And he just looks at me and he's like, no.
OK.
So let's say he just lied literally to my face.
So that's something he did.
It is so easy and you'll hear it for the hands to collapse.
And all of a sudden, that behavior becomes your kid
or your kid becomes that behavior.
And when we do that, we have no curiosity.
Because we're really only curious when there's a gap.
We're curious because we're like, I don't understand this.
Why is that?
And now we can ask a very important question.
Why would my good kid, and I'm looking at my identity hand,
to me, it's my right, and then I'll switch to my left,
lie to my face, right?
And then watch how easy it is for them to come together.
Oh, because he doesn't respect me.
And he does things he can get away with it.
And then I'd say to a parent, my wife is, wow,
wow, that was so fast.
Like there's no gap anymore.
Let's just move those hands away.
OK, that's one interpretation.
It's not a useful interpretation.
There's no more curiosity.
So once you have that gap, why would my good kid lie to my face?
Well, what I usually say if I don't know
is I'll say to myself, why would I lie to someone's face,
even if it was someone I really loved and respected?
What would happen?
I'll say my husband.
I love my husband.
I respect my husband so much.
So why would I lie to my husband?
Why would you lie to their face of someone
you even really do respect?
Because they didn't want to hurt their feelings?
Yeah, I don't want to hurt their feelings.
I'm secure about the fact that I made a big mistake
and I feel really embarrassed about it.
And I love that one.
It's so interesting.
People think when kids that say lie to their face,
and they'll also say they don't respect me,
they'll also say, and I've said this throughout my kids too.
We're like, well, because they're sociopath.
I call that the fast-forwarder.
We just create a whole persona for our kids forever
based on a behavior.
Well, they're just a sociopath.
They have no empathy.
The reason kids lie, and the reason
the adults lie often, is actually because they feel so guilty
about the thing they did, that they can no longer
separate that bad behavior from their identity.
So if lying to someone's face is so bad and lying
or pushing down someone's tower even,
if pushing down the tower is so bad
that I then feel like a horrible, unlovable person,
I will lie to anyone's face all day
just so I don't have to face the reality of what I did.
Understanding my kids' behavior does not mean
I'm approving of my kids' behavior.
But if we're curious about, let's say,
lying about pushing down a tower,
now we can actually get to the core of it.
Now we can say, okay, so what would my kid need in that moment?
To actually manage how guilty they feel,
and to know him as a safe person, to tell bad things to,
oh, now all of a sudden, I'm gonna make short-term
and long-term change.
And this does lead to one of the second benefits
of the good inside approach.
It prevents shame in kids and it gives them the feeling
of being empowered with a good self that they can then improve.
So tell me a bit more about what we do
when we make kids feel like they're actually bad kids.
There's a phrase I think about a lot
in psychology literature, which is, I am as I am seen.
And I think this really relates to kids' development, meaning,
if as a parent you think of yourself as a child's mirror,
then you are reflecting to them who they are.
And kids take in the reflection and form
how they think about themselves and their self-concept.
This is one of my biggest problems with how common it is
to just send kids away when they're struggling
or punish them or just see them as their behavior.
We are trying to promote, quote, good behavior,
by reinforcing their bad identity.
Like again, just from a logic perspective,
I'm like, why would that work?
I'm telling my kid they're a bad kid
and expecting them to be good.
And so so many parents will say in a midst of a tantrum,
they'll carry them out of a room
because they're just struggling to stay calm,
bring them to their room, not to put them there,
to sit with them there.
And they'll say, you're a good kid having a hard time.
And so many parents will say, when they're like,
when I said that for the first time,
it felt powerful to me, I watched something happen
for my kid.
I watched it because when they feel like they're a good person
having a hard time, now the sudden,
they're in the mindset of, oh, yeah.
So what could I do?
What's possible to have less of a hard time?
One of the things I tend to say in sessions to parents
is I'd say, look, there's a lot of stuff going on
and I promise you I'm actually going to help you shift it.
But I just want to start by saying, I like your kid.
I like your kid.
And my was so interesting, I feel like 80% of the time
when the parents would cry.
And I feel like I'm going to cry right now.
Yeah.
And I think it was probably the first time maybe
they had heard someone, especially quote,
a professional like say that, that teachers are always,
and I don't mean to throw teachers out of the boss.
Teachers are doing everyone's doing the best we can
in these impossible situations,
but they would have had teachers who are like,
your kid's the trouble maker, your kid's getting suspended
or they saw a clinician who worked a different way
who'd give them some label.
Like your kid is oppositional, defiant disorder.
And you're like, wow, like that's not a nice term
for my child, okay.
And starting with like, I really like your kid.
And by the way, the behavior is, no, no, no, totally not okay.
We're going to fix it, but I really like your kid.
Really was this manifestation of behavior is not identity.
Like there's a good kid, an in-paying kid,
probably a smart kid, a freaking funny kid,
really, really motivated, driven kid
underneath these really difficult behaviors.
And I think when you start and seeing that,
you intervene totally differently
in a way that feels better to the kid and the parent.
And honestly, in a way that also is just
much more effective for behavior change.
Yeah.
I mean, it's really interesting
because when you think about little kids, right?
Their prefrontal courtesies are not developed.
They have a really hard time with self control.
You could subscribe to the Pavlovian model of things here,
which is, okay, you do a bad thing,
and there's a punishment.
And so the kid does less of the bad thing.
But why is it that you think that that's not the right way
for us to engage with kids?
So let's say, maybe I'll mad that my mom said,
I can't have a sleepover, came out as,
I hate you and my mom says, go to your room.
And by the way, no dessert or no iPhone,
whatever it is for a week, okay?
So you're like, okay, so they get a punishment.
Won't they learn not to do that?
To me, what a kid really is encoding in their body
is when I feel mad, that leads to problems
in my relationship and I don't get the things I want.
So I will push away mad.
Mad is bad.
Okay, that is not a long-term strategy to manage mad
because we can't get rid of mad.
And so if mad, by the time I'm 25,
has learned zero skills, literally.
I now have the same amount of skills to manage anger
as I did when I was born, like zero.
I have developed a system to try to push it away.
Okay, you know what happens when you push away anger?
You are literally building the pressure in your body,
getting ready for a moment where it's going
to explode out of you.
The feelings always win.
They explode out of our body.
They explode or they're internalized with deep shame.
Or they're internalized deep shame
with the health problems we know people have.
Right, I mean, so many things that repressed or suppressed
or pushed away feelings lead to.
Now, I want to show the opposite
because I think people really misunderstand this
and I've never considered good inside
to be quote gentle parenting
but people kind of put us in that category.
So they'll say, oh, so it's just okay.
That my kid says I hate you.
Like, here's what an intervention from good inside
would not look like or sound like.
Oh, sweetie, you have such big feelings.
You really want to sleep over, let that anger out.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Here's what I'm talking about as like a sturdy intervention.
Hey, you're really upset that you can't have a sleep over.
I get it.
I also know there's another way you can say that to me
and I care about your being disappointed
and I'd love to talk that out with you.
And we can do that when we both take a couple of deep breaths
and use other language.
Like, I'm actually teaching my kid,
it's okay to be mad.
Kids can never learn to regulate feelings.
We don't allow them to have.
The only true strategy we ever have with our kids
is our relationship with them.
Our kids will all get to an age
and it's all sooner than we think
where they're basically like, wait, I'm big now.
Like, you literally can't put me in a timeout
and I literally don't give two shits about your stickers.
Like, seriously, that's what they're gonna say.
And so, the only thing between us is the quality
of our relationship is how connected we are.
And I just don't know anyone who looks back
on their childhood and is like,
when my parents sent me to my room, it was so productive.
I was just like Googling like how to express my anger
in a healthy way and I was kind of sitting in my bed
being like, it is really true.
My parent is helping me reflect,
no, you know what you're doing?
You're thinking about how misunderstood you are.
You are thinking about how mad you are
that your iPad was just taken away,
which literally stops you from thinking about
the behavior in the first place.
You have righteous indignation.
It is so counterproductive in reality.
It just feels good to a parent
because you get to vomit your frustration
onto your kid momentarily
and you have the illusion of having an impact
because in the moment they look upset by your consequence.
And on that point, I think it's valuable to share
that you don't see the good inside principle
simply applying to children.
It applies to parents.
And this is so important
because how many friends of mine are crippled by guilt,
are so frustrated that they aren't the parent
they wish they were going to be,
who get annoyed every time they find themselves yelling
because they committed to themselves not to yell.
And so talk to me a bit more about how
we can avoid shame spirals and all sorts of other
counterproductive things that parents do
when they're all just trying their best.
Yes, it is the exact same thing
the approach does for parents, right?
I mean, it's such a bigger picture conversation,
but we are in a messed up system as parents.
We are not set up for success.
Like, we are not given training for this.
And no, parenting does not come natural.
And for women, no, there's not some
quote maternal instinct.
That is a concept someone else made up
to make us feel bad about ourselves
and keep us small.
Preach, girl, preach.
It really is.
I love it.
F, yes.
F that.
And you know, I often think that good inside
is like a language parents are learning
and really the language of parenting.
We all speak naturally is the language we were
parented in simply.
And if I told you, hey, I was brought up speaking English
and I really want to bring up my kids in Mandarin.
I think you would tell me, wow, okay,
like, first of all, that's amazing.
That's going to be challenging.
It's definitely possible.
But I'm pretty sure you would also say to me,
in my most high stress moments with my kids,
I'd probably revert to English.
I just went, right, like, and that doesn't mean
my Mandarin isn't coming along.
It doesn't mean all is lost.
And I messed up my kids forever.
And now they'll never know Mandarin.
We say the stress cells all the time.
Like, I'm trying to connect to my kids.
And I yelled at them and I called them a spoiled brat.
And I messed them up forever.
No, like, that was a high stress moment.
You reverted, right?
I forgot who said this to me.
I'm going to say it to you because it's so powerful.
I have to get it right.
Kind of like, in a high stress moments,
we don't rise to the occasion.
We fall to the level of our training.
And that doesn't mean you're a horrible person.
Let's take away that shame.
Let's stay connected to yourself.
That whole idea of behavior versus identity.
That's how I call myself down after I yell at my kids.
I say, Becky, I'm a good parent who was having a hard time.
I am not defined by my latest behavior.
I'm good inside.
I'm good inside.
And then you know what I do next,
because yes, that's my responsibility
as I go back to skills.
What skills do I need?
Do I have to pay attention to my exhaustion sooner?
Because if I don't guess what, it explodes as anger
toward my kid, you know what?
I actually haven't worked out this week
or I really see my friends.
And those are ways I take care of my non-caregiving
parts of myself.
And so I know I need to do that
so I don't get to my breaking point as soon.
And it's really that same system applied to ourselves.
After the break, Becky shares strategies
for putting these ideas into practice.
We'll be back in a moment with a slight change of plans.
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So let's say there's a listener out there.
This is the first time they're acquainting themselves
with a good inside approach and they're like,
okay, Becky, I'm committing to this.
You need to put this into practice though.
Great.
Tell me about this concept
of the most generous interpretation.
So first off, you're listening to this
and this is a new idea and you're still listening
and I mean, this is the bottom of my heart.
I hope you give yourself credit for the bravery
it takes to consider something new.
It's such a brave thing
and you obviously know this better than anyone.
To even consider taking a different path is so vulnerable
because we're faced with like, oh, did I do it wrong?
Did I mess up my kid forever?
My answer is no to both questions and by the way,
if you take a different path, you'll be like me.
There'll still be moments you hear yourself saying,
go to your room, no, I bet for a week
and I'm like, why did I say that?
I just, I don't want to say that.
Why did I say that?
We all say these things.
No one is perfect.
Definitely not me.
I do think, like you said,
this concept of MGI, most generous interpretation
is such a concrete way to start thinking
in a different way.
So really, the simple exercise is everybody right now
think about a behavior in your kid
or could be your partner or your colleague
or your mother or not, whoever it is,
that feels like a bad behavior
and it's kind of something that gets under your skin.
So maybe I'll say for my daughter, it's screaming at me
when she could just say, I didn't like that, right?
Screaming or?
We're a colleague of mine who interrupts me in meetings
when I'm in sentences.
Perfect. Perfect.
Example, my colleague is always interrupting me.
And then just ask yourself this point.
I really, I just interrupted you, sorry.
To make that point.
Whoops.
So I would say, what is my most generous interpretation
of Maya's interrupting me?
Right?
What is my most generous interpretation of
and then fill in the blank?
What is my most generous interpretation
of my daughter continuing to jump on the couch
after I said, please stop jumping on the couch.
What is my most generous interpretation
of my daughter lying to my face?
What is my most generous interpretation
of why my partner came home after 6 p.m.
when we had talked about my partner coming home at 5.30 p.m.
And to be clear, when you come up
with the most generous interpretation,
the action you take next isn't saying to the other person,
it's fine that you did that.
No.
What a most generous interpretation lens does for you
is it always helps you see that there is a good person
under a bad behavior.
And what it really does is it helps you think,
like, well, what was going on for that person?
Like what else could have been their positive intent
even if it wasn't acted out in their behavior?
And what it does is it also helps you intervene
from a place of groundedness and of seeing the other person
as a teammate.
Me and Maya are on a team against interrupting.
Me and my husband are on a team against poor communication
around what time he was going to be home from work.
Me and my daughter are actually on the same team
against this hitting problem
because the truth is she doesn't want to be doing it either
and that changes everything.
You talking your book about one of the most important tools
for parents being the concept of repair.
So tell me more about rupture and repair
and how owning this as a parent can actually improve things.
So rupture is really any moment in a relationship
where you feel disconnected.
A rupture is me yelling at my kid, what's wrong with you?
Or me calling them a name, I cannot believe you freaked out
in that twist or you are such a spoiled brat.
A rupture can also be my kid wanting to talk to me
about something and me invalidating it
or rushing past it.
I'm really upset about not making the soccer team.
Oh, you're so dramatic.
It's not a big deal.
You made the basketball team back to be a rupture too.
So it's really like a break in your connection with someone.
And a repair is the process of going back
to that moment of disconnection, taking responsibility
for your part in that event, helping the other person
understand it in a different way.
And I think also stating what you would do differently
the next time.
Events in and of themselves are not what
have a negative impact on kids.
And so actually this understanding is huge.
So an event like I just screamed my head off at my kids.
Now, is that an amazing event for a kid?
Of course not.
It's not a great event.
But that event isn't having the impact on your kids
that you think it is.
What has an impact on a kid and their development
is how an event gets processed for them.
It's actually more about what happens after the event.
There's two things that can happen.
An event is followed by a loneliness.
And nobody ever talks to me about it.
And no one ever mentions it again.
So after an overwhelming event, I guess I'm just a five-year-old
trying to process this on my own.
There's that.
Or there's the same event.
And then after some point, I have a loving, safe, trusted
adult who connects with me and helps me understand that event
and gives me more coherence about the event
and helps me regulate my feelings through that process.
Same event to totally different ways of processing it
and two completely different outcomes.
And the difference is actually all about the relationship
we have with someone after the event.
Yeah, you have a great quote, which is that,
Repair gives a not great chapter a different ending
and allows for a different lesson to be learned.
In this case, the not great chapter
was yelling at your kid.
Yes.
So a repair for yelling at my son might sound like,
hey, earlier, Che, I screamed at you in the kitchen.
And I'm sorry.
And I think I was just having a really hard time.
I was stressed and that came out as a yell.
It wasn't your fault.
And I'm working on managing my own frustration.
So even when I'm frustrated, it doesn't come out in a yell.
And if that all seems too complicated,
just saying to a kid, I'm sorry I yelled.
That wasn't your fault.
I love you.
It's like shorthand.
And I'm happy to double click on it wasn't your fault
because I know it's like kind of a complicated thing
because you're like, it is kind of your fault.
It is through your dinner all over the room
and yell at me for whatever.
Yeah.
So how do you get there?
Here's how I get there.
I was having some set of feelings that
were bigger than my ability to regulate those feelings.
That has to do with the event in front of me.
But honestly, this is the hard truth.
My regulation skills and patterns predated my son's existence.
They're in my body.
Like how able am I in general to deal with frustration?
How able am I to keep myself regulated and grounded
when I'm upset?
How able am I to communicate with someone
when I'm frustrated with them
in a way that's still respectful?
Those things have to do with me.
He didn't quote, make me yell.
An event happened between us.
I felt frustrated.
And at the point the frustration started in my body,
it's kind of my own skills that relate to how I handle it.
The more we teach our kids that we're blaming them
for our lack of coping skills or inability
to access them in the moment,
that creates a whole set of not-so-great patterns
intergenerationaly that I actually don't think anyone
actually wants to pass on to their kids.
Plus one last thing.
It is the most disempowering thing to me,
like when parents say,
but if my kid didn't complain about dinner,
I wouldn't yell.
Look, I know yelling doesn't feel great to you.
It doesn't feel great to anyone.
So you're saying that you're willing to depend on
your four-year-old, changing what they say
for you to behave in a way that's in line with your values?
Like, I'm not willing to make that bet.
My self-esteem is way too important to me
to leave it dependent on my kid.
So I think that's another perspective on it.
Yeah.
And there's an irony because there's actually
just parallel processes happening
that are very similar to one another,
which is the kids disappointed with the meal
and can't manage the big emotions.
So they throw their dinner plate in food everywhere.
The mom or dad can't handle the behaviors of the kid,
and then they can't regulate themselves.
And so maybe we can bridge the empathy gap just a little bit.
If we realize the inherent psychological similarities
between what both parent and child
are managing in that moment.
That's right.
So if our kid's dysregulated emotion
is just met with our dysregulated emotions,
then what they're building in their body
in terms of their circuits and patterns
of learning of how the world works,
is my emotion that was too big for me
gets layered on top of my parents' emotion
that was too big for them.
Guess what?
I'm actually making it harder for my kid
to learn how to regulate their own emotions
because of that association.
What do you say to parents who are afraid
that it's just too late for them to implement your approach?
So they're thinking, look, this all sounds great,
but my kid is 24.
And so I'm pretty sure that I miss the window.
It is never too late.
It is never too late.
Is it going to take effort to reestablish a connection
with your 24-year-old?
100% just like it would take effort
to learn a new language.
But ironically, the belief that it's too late
is the single biggest thing that stops us from change.
And then I would say like, what is one thing?
What is one thing you can do?
And to me, when we're trying to establish
a closer relationship with our kids or anyone,
repairs often like the best starting point,
if you just imagine your own parent calling you,
like, hey, like I've been thinking a lot
about our relationship and the way I did things.
And I just, I know there were a lot of things
that felt really bad to you.
And I get that.
And you were right to feel that way.
And I care about you.
And I know we can't do a complete 180 right now,
but I'm willing to listen.
And I want to do things differently.
I just don't know one adult who's like, yeah, it's too late.
That would do nothing.
I know plenty of adults who would say,
I don't know, I might still have my guard up
and that wouldn't change everything.
And I'd say good.
Now, one conversation shouldn't change everything,
but it might change one thing or it might change some things.
And I think if we know that it would have that impact on us,
well, our kids are younger than us
and they're even more open as a result.
And I think that's a great starting point.
I think I just have a reflection, which is just
with all of these tools and all of these techniques,
parenting is just so freaking hard.
And I'm curious if you're willing to share.
Like when you maybe imagine parenthood
and what it was going to be like
and then you experience the reality,
what have you found to be the most surprising,
hard component of being a parent?
Yeah.
I think on some level unconsciously,
we think our kids are gonna heal us.
And the truth is our kids trigger us.
Like they trigger us all the time.
And so in that way, I think what I was unprepared for,
and I think most people are unprepared for is
like parenting is just an exercise in like self development
if we're willing to take it on.
Our kids trigger us, which really mean,
oh, they bring up a lot of unresolved,
unprocessed things in us.
And am I willing to look in and say, okay,
can I use those and grow?
Because obviously it'll help me grow as a parent.
Ironically, it'll actually help me grow more as a person
because these things always kind of lived within me,
but they just weren't triggered as often.
You know, I had my first kid and he just temperamentally
was like an kind of easier kid.
I didn't realize that I had me a tantrum
but looking back, he really was pretty easy.
I did all these parenting things
and it's not like he said, thank you, mommy, you know,
but he did kind of like do well when I did them.
And I remember I'd have these parents in my private practice
who'd be like, I'm doing the thing.
You're telling me, but my kid, the yellard's not changing
and in the back of my head, I'd be like,
you're probably not doing it right, you know?
But then I'd be like, I wouldn't say that to their face.
And then I had my second kid and I was like,
oh, my goodness.
Like I thought I had this down a little bit
and all those things those parents were saying to me
in my practice, that's happening now.
Yeah.
Like, oh, my goodness.
My second, I feel like it's a lot more effort
on my part to show up the way she would need.
And also therefore, yeah, like we have more rupture moments
for sure because of also what she triggers in me.
Yeah.
What you're sharing with Mebecky is really profound
because I think we think of parenting as the phase in life
where we've accumulated all of this wisdom
and now it's time to impart that wisdom on these little people,
right?
And I think what you're teaching me in this moment
is actually what kids do is they hold up a mirror to you
and actually it's self-learning.
Yeah.
I think that's exactly right.
You know, I always think about the prologue
from far from the tree, which is the amazing
of a brand new Solomon.
Yeah.
And I think his first line is, there's no such thing
as reproduction.
And I think that's a lot about parenting.
We use this word reproduction as if we reproduce.
And he says, a child is an act of production.
Yes.
You produce.
And what he says is parenting is being forever cast
into a relationship with a stranger.
And it's so dark, but it's so true.
And he's like, people don't say it that way
because no one would have kids.
They'd be like, I don't know if this stranger is.
I don't know if I want to live with this kid.
My whole life.
Right.
That's kind of what it is.
And you know, I think that brings up so much for us.
Like you learn way more about yourself
than you will ever teach your child.
And that's tiring.
And I think again, it's just very different
than like the societal view and expectations of parenting.
I feel like it's so important to like say it how it really is.
Because hopefully there'll be generations who have kids
at some point.
And you can just say, I knew it would be hard.
I know it would be hard.
Hey, thanks so much for listening.
If you enjoyed my conversation with Dr. Becky,
I recommend checking out last week's episode
with developmental psychologist, Alison Gopnik.
We talk about how children are the best learners we know
of in the universe and what they can teach us
about creativity and being more open to taking risks.
And join me next week when I talk with someone who honestly,
I'm kind of obsessed with.
So Lakea Jawad.
She's the author of the best-selling memoir
between two kingdoms, and she shares her story
at being diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia
in her early 20s.
We talk about the isolation of illness and recovery,
why she hates the trope of the hero's journey
and cancer stories, and the solace in finding creativity
and community throughout it all.
You won't want to miss this one.
I'll see you next week.
A Slight Change of Plans is created written and executive
produced by Mia Shankar.
The Slight Change family includes our showrunner, Tyler Green,
our senior editor, Kate Parkinson Morgan,
our senior producer, Trisha Bobita, and our engineer, Erica Huang.
Luis Scarra wrote our delightful theme song,
and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals.
A Slight Change of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries,
so a big thanks to everyone there.
And of course, a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee.
You can follow a Slight Change of Plans on Instagram
at Dr. Mia Shankar.
See you next week.
I'm going to be a Slight Change of Plans.
Like if I was going out dinner at my husband,
and he was like, get on your shoes by the time I count to three,
or you don't get dessert tonight.
And if I said, I'm not getting my shoes,
I just don't know one person who'd say, Becky,
I think you have a listening problem.
I think they'd be like, Becky, I think you have a husband problem.
Like, what is that guy's deal?
Hahaha.
