We all want our kids to be confident, to be resilient, to stand up for themselves, to know that they can say no sometimes.
And at the same time, I've just been hearing from parents constantly, do I want that so bad for my kid when they're older that it feels like they are the pilot of the plane now?
Like I'm walking on eggshells, like I have to say yes to everything, like their feelings end up dictating what we do.
What is the balance here?
How can I raise kids kids who are confident, who know what they want.
How can I not lose myself in the process and feel completely exhausted, overwhelmed, and frankly, a little resentful.
And when my kid says no, how do I listen to them in a way that gives them that internal confidence and builds their voice, but also lets them know that I'm the adult right now.
And a lot of the times I have to make make decisions that they're not happy about.
Today, we're going to be talking about these themes.
In a way, we're talking about confidence, self -trust, assertiveness.
We're also talking about consent, because so many moments when our kids are young have to do with, who do I trust?
Can I trust my own body?
Can I assert myself when my parent needs to make a decision, but I feel differently as a kid.
How do we get through that?
This episode is going to be a really good one.
And I promise you by the end, you'll have a really new way to think about building your kid's confidence.
And you won't feel so stuck.
It won't feel like either I get to be in charge or I get to help my kid become assertive.
You'll see a way or you can really do both.
I'm Dr. Becky, and this is Good Inside.
We'll be back right after this.
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So I was at a family friend's house over the weekend and I walk in and the scene played out where most people wouldn't have thought twice about what happened.
But I don't know if you ever have these moments where you see your kid do something and then you think, oh my goodness, that was years in the making.
And it might look small to anyone else.
Honestly, it might be unnoticeable to anyone else.
But to me, I was bursting with pride and I honestly couldn't wait to come here and tell you about it.
So here's what happened.
My friend said to one of my kids, hey, haven't seen you in so long.
Come here, give me a big hug.
It was completely well -intentioned.
My friend was bursting with excitement to see my kids.
It had been, I don't know, multiple years.
And here's what my child said.
I can give you a high five.
Okay. You might be thinking, I'm still waiting for the punchline.
That is the punchline.
Hey, I'm so excited.
Let me give you a hug.
In that moment, my child somehow scanned their body and thought, is that something I want?
Do I want to give a hug now between you and me?
this is a child where hugs are reserved for people they feel really, really close with.
A hug to someone that isn't so known, it's totally not this kid's jam.
And my child knew that in that moment.
And not only that, but then had presence of mind, and groundedness, and an idea to offer for a different way to connect that was within their comfort zone.
A high five. Okay. My friend didn't even react.
Said, oh great. High five.
They had a high five and the day continued.
Here's the rewind I want to do.
There are so many moments when our kids are young where they are asked to give a hug, to sit on a lap, to do something around their body that maybe they they feel comfortable with.
And if they do, it's not even something we need to talk about.
But there are other kids where they are not.
You can tell they start clinging to you.
They move behind you.
They resist. They want to do something in a different direction.
They run away. And there can feel like there's, I don't know, family, family, friends, societal pressure.
Like if I was a good parent, I quote, wouldn't have a kid who makes a big deal out of this.
But between you and me, you know what I want my kid to always make a big deal out of?
The things that they have signals around in their body.
When their body is saying, I don't want to connect in that way.
I don't want this level of intimacy.
I don't want a certain type of touch. I really mean this.
Even if it's inconvenient, I hope my kid always can listen to that signal and can assert themselves.
selves. And I promise you that ability, it doesn't just develop.
It's not something they're gifted at age 15.
It's not something they're gifted at their first college party.
It's something we can in our homes help them develop.
Now, I want to get ahead of something because I think it's really easy in this moment to say, oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness, mom, I think I messed up.
I think I, oh, I missed the window.
I totally have put pressure on my kid to you hug grandma?
Come on, it's not that big of a deal.
Come on, it wouldn't make grandpa so happy.
Let me talk to you directly.
If we believe in anything at Good Inside, it's two things.
That there are no such things as perfect parents and that repair is the most important strategy we have. It is never too late to change how we handle these moments.
It is never too late to to say to our kids, hey, in the past, I've often said things like, hey, why don't you just make this person happy or hug this person?
And I'm sorry I said that.
The truth is, if your body ever has a signal that you don't want to touch someone or connect with someone in a certain way, it is actually my job to help you listen to that and learn to honor that and stand up for yourself.
So we're going to do it differently going forward. Boom.
Huge. Now, I know going back to this story that my child's ability to say, hey, let's high five instead, again, was built over so many years.
And I want to be honest, over a lot of kind of awkward moments, moments where maybe I questioned myself, oh, do I have a kid who's being difficult?
Oh, all the other cousins are being so easy.
But holy moly, in this moment, I couldn't have felt prouder of my kid.
And I honestly, I think it's okay to say this.
I couldn't have felt prouder of kind of the family environment that we've tried to create to honor your body signals.
And then over time, learn ways to communicate that both respect your boundaries and might still offer other ways to connect with other people.
What we're talking about is not just an unwanted hug from a family friend.
We're really talking about something much more core around consent, which is who knows my body best?
Who knows what I like?
Who knows what I'm ready for?
Is it okay to listen to my own voice even if it upsets other people?
Ooh, those are the big questions that matter more and more as our kids get older.
And today, I want to talk about those questions and think about so many different moments where we can really empower our kids and maybe in the process, like re -empower ourselves.
Because when you say things to your kids that you really needed someone else to say to you, you're kind of saying it to yourself at the same time.
And that's literally a win for everyone.
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why. So here's a question I often get from parents as soon as I start talking about wiring our kids for consent, for confidence, for feeling like they know their body best. Parent will often say, okay, Dr. Becky, what about this?
Every time I ask my kid to brush their teeth, they go, I know my body best. I don't want to brush my teeth.
Every time I say say to my kid, whoa, I'm not going to let you hit.
I know my body best. I want to hit.
I'm just supposed to let my kid who knows their body best, like do whatever they want and have like drive the car, walk all over me.
This is an amazing question.
And first of all, let me just be clear.
My answer is no, no. In my house, my kids not say I know my body best and I would like an ice cream sundae for every breakfast. And I don't say, oh, good job listening to your body.
That is definitely not what happens in my home.
And I think we're conflating two things.
Okay. We're conflating helping our kid learn to trust the signals in their body with things that they want always being things that they get.
Those are two very different things.
We can help our kids build up confidence and self -trust even as we set key boundaries.
Now, if we go back to the example of hugging, that would be a perfect example where I'm not going to flex my parental authority.
I'm not going to make my kid hug someone and override this feeling they have of I am not ready for touch and that level of intimacy yet.
Why? Because I want my kids when they get older and are in situations where they're judging how close and almost literally quote how far to go with other people, I want them to know I have an internal barometer I can trust. Not, I'm going to look at the other person and see what they want from me and think it's my job to give it to them.
him. I'm going to say that again, because it's heavy and it matters.
When my kids are older and it comes to intimacy and relationships and closeness and touch, I want their circuitry to say, I know what I'm ready for.
I know my pace and I can trust that.
Not, I'm going to look around and find the other person and see what they want of me and use that to determine my behavior.
behavior. No. Now, that is different in my mind from what you get for breakfast, from how much TV you get to watch. And I want you to know you can still wire, as I say, build circuitry for consent and confidence in those situations, even when you set a boundary.
Here's a good example.
Okay, OK, let's say TV time is over.
If your kid is like my kid and any kid I know, they ask for more TV.
Why? Not because they're ungrateful, not because they're trying to prove their power, because I don't know, it's just hard to end TV shows.
I know for me, it's hard to go to bed and not kind of put on another show.
We all want more things.
So here's my kid whining and complaining, but I'm not ready for bed yet, but I want another TV show.
Now, one way of responding to our kid is just to shut that down.
Stop. You're being ridiculous.
Right. Stop. up. We always watch X many TV shows and it's that X number.
It's time to go to bed.
Why are you so difficult?
But I want you to watch this.
First of all, I love that you're a kid who can ask for what they want.
Or I love that you're a kid that knows what you want.
Like you're a kid who knows you want another TV show.
That's actually so cool.
And I believe you. And my job involves involves making decisions sometimes that are good for you long -term or good for your health, even if short -term, that's kind of hard. And one of those decisions is bedtime.
And one of those decisions is screen time.
And one of those decisions is what is offered for breakfast, whatever it is.
If you're thinking that's too many words for my kid, you could say it very simply.
That's what I'd probably do in real life.
I'd probably just say, Oh, you really want another another TV show.
I totally get that.
And TV time is over.
You're allowed to be upset.
I'm here with you. We'll get through it.
And pretty soon we'll start brushing your teeth.
That's it. I'm validating what's happening for them.
I'm allowing their protest and feelings to kind of give them the message.
You do know what you want.
And honestly, sometimes I say, especially to my daughter, I think it's really cool that you're a kid who knows what they want.
Really cool. and never but and whatever decision I'm making I think big picture because I think that's what I always think about a good inside like we are long -term greedy in our parenting approach it's not just about the moment it's about how we try to intervene in moments to help today and build for tomorrow we cannot encourage compliance in childhood and expect assertiveness in adulthood adulthood, if our goal is quick, quiet compliance, don't say another word. Your voice doesn't matter here because you're eight.
That's why it's a ridiculous thing to ask.
If you ask me again, I am going to, and I don't always say some threat that we're never going to follow through on. That's what I do at least. Okay.
We do that. What we're really saying to our kid isn't, it's my job to hold boundaries.
What we're really saying to our kid is your voice about what you want is dangerous.
Your voice about what you want is wrong.
Your job is to not only quiet what you say to others, your job to stay safe is to quiet the voice inside yourself that's giving you a signal about what you like and what you want.
Now, the other part of my job as a parent, right, besides allowing some feelings to come out, allowing the protest, is to hold my boundaries, right so encouraging assertiveness in adulthood that doesn't come from letting your kid get everything they want no that will encourage a lot of entitlement that's not what we want there's a duality here that we try to hold at good inside all the time right and if it feels hard to hold that duality you're not alone most of us didn't have it held for us and we live in a world where it's becoming increasingly hard to hold two things at once right so you're
not crazy if this feels hard. What I'm saying is that we want to tell our kids some version of you're allowed to feel that way.
I believe you. That thing is real.
Or even once in a while, it's cool you know what you want.
And there are certain decisions that are mine to make, and this is one of them.
Now I'm actually leading my kids while I am really building that circuitry for self -trust, for confidence and for trusting your own body, which is really what consent is all about.
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so one of the things I love is that we've brought in the conversation I think we talk about consent a lot just in terms of like hugging a grandparent or sitting on you know your aunt's lap and that is one version but if we brought in the conversation I find it a lot more hopeful because we can see so many other areas of our kids life where we can build the circuitry for consent because we see it's actually really about developing trust that you really do feel the way you feel and that you can trust that you can listen to your own voice?
Obviously, one of those examples is about hugging or interacting physically with family members, right?
Do I want to be tickled?
Do I want to have anybody, you know, sit right next to me on the couch?
There are so many other examples of this too, because if we realize that consent and confidence really comes from trusting your signals in your body, there are so many other moments when that comes up day to day.
And so I just want to tell you a story that really struck me right in my own family.
So we're driving in the car, right?
And my three kids are in the back seat.
And if you, you know, also have three kids, you know, any long drive with three kids across is like a disaster.
They're just touching each other.
They're bothering each other.
You're on my side of the seat.
No, I'm not. It's too hot.
It's too cold. I want the window open.
I want the window closed.
The whole situation was happening and it happened to be a pretty hot day.
Okay. And so we wanted the the AC on.
Most of us did. Right.
And then one of my kids opened the window.
Right. And so here it is.
It's like now getting really, really hot in the car because it's really, really hot outside.
And, you know, me, my husband are all like, oh, it's so hot.
It's so hot. It's so hot.
Right. And one of my kids, my youngest, just goes, I'm really, really cold.
OK. I have to be honest. I don't know if he was really, really cold.
Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't.
I wasn't cold. But to me, this moment happens all the time in parenting.
I'm going to name it for you in a general way.
My kid is saying that they're feeling a certain way that feels so far from even being being possibly true because I don't feel anywhere near the way they're feeling.
My kid is protesting about a red shirt that they hate and I'm like, but red is your color, right?
My kid says, I hate going to school and I'm thinking, you told me yesterday at school was the best day of your life, right?
So we have all of these situations where our kid says says something strongly.
I'm cold. It is 95 degrees in this car.
Okay. This to me is actually one of your most bang for your buck moments.
Now, I promise you, I understand that they are also very frustrating moments because it feels like you're a kid and you have these completely different realities and you just need someone else to look at you and be like, no, no, you're not crazy.
I see what's happening.
But if you say that to yourself, and I mean this, if I can say to myself in that car, Becky, I am cold.
If I can say to myself, I know red's the favorite color.
If I can say to myself, I know my son just told me yesterday was the best day of his life at school.
All of a sudden, I'm not as threatened by my kid's different reality.
And you know what I can do then?
I can build the circuitry for consent and self -trust and and confidence.
A big idea I just want you to think about is you don't have to understand someone else's experience to believe it.
I want to say that again.
You don't have to understand someone else's experience to believe it.
And the other thing I want to say is it's It's not dangerous to believe someone else's experience.
I think we all think, oh, then this is going to happen.
This, we make up these stories.
I promise you the worst scenarios happen when you invalidate someone's experience because you know what they have to do?
Oh boy, they have to escalate and escalate and escalate their expression in an attempt to be believed.
You don't believe that your kid hates their red shirt.
You better bet they're going to go around your house, is taking every red crayon and like throwing it out your house just to prove to you.
I don't know what it is.
Is it that they don't like red?
Is that just their way of saying I'm uncomfortable today?
You don't believe that your kid doesn't want to go to school today or that they hate school.
You don't believe it in the moment and you try to contradict it.
You better bet your kid is going to double down on there is no way you can make me get in the car.
So let's get back to the situation because the most interesting thing happened.
OK, so we're in the car.
My son and is claiming he's cold while he opened the window and 95 degree weather with like 100 % humidity is just racing into the car.
We're all sweating.
And one of my kids said to him, there is no way you are cold.
It is not possible.
And I'm already laughing because I just have seared in my memory his response.
You're not in my body.
You don't know how I feel.
maybe that's the thing that needs repeating today you're not in my body you have no idea how i feel now i want to tell you how i intervened because again when my son says that what i don't say as a parent in the passenger seat is you guys he's cold so we're going to keep the windows open no like these are totally different things what i ended up saying to him is you're cold i believe you.
Or again, the way you can really try to believe without understanding is just saying, there's something about this that doesn't feel good to you right now.
I believe you. There's something about this that you're still cold.
I believe you. There's something about this red shirt you hate.
I believe you. There's something about going to school today that doesn't feel good.
I believe you. I don't even have to do the cognitive labor of trying to understand it.
we rack our brains why would they hate school they left school yesterday they love to learn I just got a good report card we spend so much energy trying to understand I hope you feel the relief of like what Dr. Becky said I don't even have to understand it you don't you literally don't it's like oh I just can say there's something about this it's such a good line it's like almost lazy parenting and effective parenting at the same time there's something thing about this doesn't feel good that's it okay what I ended up doing in the car is I said look I believe you you're cold right and then I said
and we are going to close the window it is one of those days outside where humidity is really high there's a lot of us who are hot you are not one of them And so this car ride is going to feel uncomfortable for you.
And I have a feeling we can figure it out.
I can connect to him, believe him, even if I don't understand.
And I can still own my parental authority and set a boundary, all at the same time.
So I'm really excited about back to school this year.
so much so that I've created two new programs, both of which I'm doing live.
One, back to school for kids who are beginning school, kindergartens, pre -Kers.
And for this one, it's all about starting out strong and building resilience and the love of learning and that kind of grit and growth mindset that I talked about here.
The other one is a live, deeply feeling kid back to school program.
These kids take back -to -school hard, and I know that I can share things that help make the transition so much smoother and make the whole year a little bit better.
You can find out about both in the link in the show notes or at goodinside .com.
Okay, so we had a bunch of questions submitted from parents, just questions about consent, confidence, self -trust, so I'm going to take some of them now.
okay how do I handle it when other adults push back like insisting on a hug or telling my kid they're being rude so this is a question that I'm tempted to say say this back I'll give you a script but here's the problem with scripts and I promise you we'll get there is if in the moment we don't have a framework that helps us stay grounded if we don't have a way of understanding if we don't have something to say to ourselves, we are gonna be so activated and kind of panicked that it's like we're in the panic part of our mind when the script to say back is in the calm, sturdy part of our mind.
And when we're in the panic part of our mind, we don't have access to any of the good stuff that lives in the calm, sturdy part of our mind.
It's kind of like on a shelf in a closet, but we don't have the key, right?
right? Which is just a good thing to think about in general because that makes you think, oh, is that why I keep yelling at my kid when I want to stay calm?
Is that why, even though I kind of know I'm triggered by whining and I want to kind of say these things, I end up just saying these awful things, that is why, which actually totally changes the game of what we want to work on because we want to work on being triggered, which are things that I promise I'm going to see what we can help you with.
Not building up more things and kind of our arsenal of things to say back.
So how do I handle it when other adults push back, like insisting on a hug or telling my child they're being rude?
I'm going to kind of upgrade this question.
And what I'm going to do is shift it a little too.
It's very hard for me when adults push back.
How can I I ground myself so I even have access to something I would want to say back or so I have access to the way I'd want to handle it.
Now we're shifting from focusing on saying back to focusing on gazing in and grounding ourselves and really re -accessing that sturdiness that lives inside of us.
So there could be a couple things.
And again, none of these things are going to translate into real life.
This is like building a muscle.
It's about practice.
It's about hearing it a million million different times, right?
It's not something that's going to shift overnight.
To me, probably the first thing that just comes to mind is it's not my job to make everyone else happy.
That feels triggering to hear.
I actually suggest you say it aloud, not because you buy it, just as a little experiment with your body.
We could do it together, okay?
Okay. It is not my job to make the other adults around me happy.
I like this experiment.
I'm going to say another one.
We could say it out loud.
This is like kind of like exposure.
We're exposing ourselves to new ideas that feel a little anxiety producing.
It's okay if the other adults around me disagree with my parenting decision.
And I'm going to say another thing that's going to make you think it's a full circle back to the original idea.
I can gaze in and notice what feels right to me instead of gaze out and notice what people want from me.
I promise you that is probably probably the most rewarding journey of parenting.
And it's a journey, not a moment, not a podcast, not a script.
Like, well, how do I gaze in?
How do I kind of reparent myself and understand my triggers in a different way?
Because I promise you, the impact is not just handling this moment.
It's actually like handling every moment in a way that just feels better.
So let's say we're a little better at grounding ourselves.
How do I actually handle the pushback in a simple way, you know?
I'm making up that my kid's name is Bobby.
Actually, we don't make Bobby gives hugs.
Bobby will say hi in a moment when he's ready.
Something like that.
Oh, he's being so rude.
He's not being rude.
He's just doing things on his own timeline.
And in our family, that's okay.
Sometimes I think the things that we say to other adults, actually, we're not saying to other adults, we're just saying out loud so our kid can understand and of our alliance with them and giving them a story to even understand their own behavior.
here okay sometimes my kid says stop when we're roughhousing but honestly he's laughing while he says it i honestly don't know if he means it or not what am i supposed to do in that moment this is such a beautiful question and i think a lot of us have this situation like my kids saying stop but like they also do look like they're enjoying themselves so this one i'm just gonna have a direct response in the simplest form stop means stop and i think that that's a really really powerful family value.
And what I mean by that is to me, this is an amazing dinner table moment conversation, not just something to kind of act on in this specific moment.
I want to talk about something guys.
In our family, one of the things that I think we need to speak about more starting today is just the idea that when somebody says stop, we listen.
Now, this is a setup because then you can say to your kids, what do you think about that?
Yeah. Okay. Obviously.
And then you can say this.
It seems simple, but there's a lot of kind of complicated parts of it.
So let me explain more.
Sometimes people say stop in a way that's very simple.
Stop. I don't like that.
You're like, okay, I'm going to stop.
What about when someone says stop, but you think they might actually be laughing or enjoying it?
do you stop or not?
And this is a great moment to pause.
And even if your kid says, oh, but they're having a fun time.
Don't panic. Your kid is younger today than they are tomorrow.
This is an amazing moment to say, I'm so glad we're talking about this.
In our family, it is a value to listen to someone stop even if they're laughing.
Even if they seem to be enjoying it.
We hear that stop the same way we heard the first one.
Stop. And we put the laughter or our sense of what's happening to the side.
You're almost setting yourself up also to practice it.
Like, okay, well, what if I say stop like this?
Stop. Do you stop? Oh, yeah, yeah.
Okay, but what if I say stop like this?
Stop. Stop. Do you stop?
And you're going to do that until your kid says yes yes this is a beautiful question and i think the most important thing about it is talking to your kids about it not in a blaming way but she said stop but like when i think of a dinner conversation doesn't have to be over dinner it's in a calm moment you're on the same team you're explaining your values you're learning about it together which means there's no shame there's no blame which means this lesson is going to be more likely to stick Let's wrap up today with a few key takeaways.
To me, these are the three things that are loudest after we've been talking.
Number one, consent isn't one big talk.
It's not one moment.
It actually kind of comes from a lot of these small moments.
And I say that in a way that that should feel empowering and like less pressure.
Two, you don't have to understand your kid's experience to believe it.
Don't have to understand your kid's experience to believe it.
relief. And three, you don't have to get it right the first time.
You don't have to get it right all the time.
I mean, now that I think about it, as we've been talking, most of my stories are moments when I messed up and then I realized the thing and then I go back and I repair and that's an amazing thing to do.
So that's a pattern you feel like you're in.
That's often a pattern I feel like I'm in as well and that's okay now a small ask if this episode if the podcast in general resonates with you it truly means so much when you rate and review it so if you have a moment to do that I promise you I will read what you write I take it in and just know that it means so much kind of want to send us off with one or two things that you might need to hear that I know I often need to say to myself in the mirror, you're allowed to say no. You're allowed to set boundaries even when other people are upset.
And you're allowed to gaze in and trust your body's signals instead of first gazing out and looking for an answer from someone else.
I can't wait to see you next time.
I would like to thank Great Wolf Lodge and Skylight for sponsoring this episode.
