Dr. Becky Kennedy (psychologist on parenting)

Dr. Becky Kennedy's here today. She's a big deal. She's a very big deal. I bet there'll be a lot of people that listen that already follow her on Instagram.

She's got a very large following. Dr. Becky Kennedy is a clinical psychologist and founder of Good Inside, the expert guided community powered platform equipping parents with a new way of seeing and solving challenges at home. The book that she is here to discuss is Good Inside, a guide to becoming the parent you want to be. I loved this.

Me too. And I start with a chip on my shoulder, which I talk about. I don't generally love parenting books. This is my own proclivity or something, hang up. Yeah.

But I loved this one. Yeah. And the audio version of Good Inside is available on Spotify audiobooks. So check it out there. Reminder.

Before we start with Dr. Becky, just want to say that we have a new show we've been working on for a while now, coming out tomorrow. We're very, very proud of, with a friend of ours, Chad Sanders, who we had on the podcast a few years ago. You might remember.

Friday night lights meets cereal. Yes. It's very fun. It's eight episodes and we're releasing one every Friday on our feed. Yes.

So tomorrow we have no armchair anonymous.

It's really, really good. Yeah. Please enjoy Dr. Becky Kennedy.

Dr.

Becky Kennedy, welcome to the program. Have you ever heard the program? I have. You have. So you know what you're in store for.

I don't know what I'm in store.

I found that to.

What was that childhood like?

And me and my friends were all kids of parents who in no way grew up in the town they moved to. So it was very aspirational. They had kind of made it in some way. They moved to this nice town. And yeah, there was a lot of achievement pressure in sports and academics.

What college are you going to? It was kind of an intense academic environment in that way. And were you also?

We love Westchester. Yeah. Westchester's some of our best listeners. But it did feel like, you know, our parents had kind of made it in some way. They aspired to live in this nicer town.

They did that. And then they're just expectations on kids around that. It would be wrong, as I'm finding out. But there's.

I don't really care what grades they get. I just want them to like fall in love with something. That's it. And I don't care if it garners any money or anything, because I already went down that road. It wasn't as fulfilling as I expected.

Yeah. So I can imagine that also being an outcome of people who have achieved that, just going like, oh, wow,

Because you can afford to give them money. Well, I think the.

For sure. I've watched.

And then he and his wife are on vacation in Miami and she takes on a lover while they're there. Literally a pool boy at a hotel, and they have this long affair and he's kind of incorporated into the family and that unravels. and she has a couple other things going. And he's weirdly supportive of it. He's like trying to get the young guy like, you know, she's really struggling.

Maybe you could say hi. It's very interesting. Truly not even judgmental of it. But what I was judgmental of is his addictions also going through the roof. He's becoming more and more of a drunk.

And to me, what that looked like is, okay, you got all the shit, but there's still no elation. Where are we going to find the elation? It's like, well, maybe if we open up this marriage, there might be some elation there. Maybe if we party, maybe if we go to Miami more, this kind of like endless hedonic treadmill, pursuit of feeling elation, which just isn't, maybe a feeling humans have.

BA in psychology and human development. And what drew you to that topic? I have a stereotype of people at my college.

So I went to Duke and I realized, oh, this is what I could study. Like I can study why we do the things we do. Yes. And I just remember thinking,

My visual in psychology is almost like I'd be able to like go further down with someone. I find understanding people to be incredibly compelling, and it never ends. There's always more layers, and that's what's in it. for me. There's something interesting.

Do you think there's any point where it becomes like pathological, the exploration?

Like people, are inherently good, and yet we all do a ton of bad things. And so there's just this massive gap. I think that's what it is for psychology. I'm just very drawn to that gap between good identity and bad behavior. And so to me, the more you understand that gap, you can actually help.

So their distress is almost a problem and you have to be there with them all the time. And so just a lot of togetherness all the time. It's like proximity. Yeah, exactly. Where attachment theory really has its basis in evolution, with the idea that, more than anything else, what a kid needs to survive is maintaining attachment and a close relationship to their parents.

Because obviously we need food and shelter and water, but the way you get that in humans is through attachment, because kids are just helpless for so many more years than almost any other animal species. Kids are kind of always paying attention to the status of their relationship with their parents. And I think the questions kids are always asking, even though they never say it, is just what parts of me bring my parents closer and give me safety? And what parts of me lead to distance and rejection? And then we really develop along those lines.

because you can imagine that's actually very protective for a kid to say, oh, those parts of me gain distance, whether it's through yelling, through punishment, through being sent to my room. Okay, well, that's actually dangerous. I will evolve away from those parts. And what parts of me get love and get talked about kindly and get, oh, come here and I'll sit with you. Oh, I better be more of those parts.

But then another part of me just screams, yes, and that is the apparatus that allows us to all function as a social primate. Like you're supposed to recognize when your behavior is antisocial or not positive, and you're supposed to be rejected for that behavior. That's how it's always worked. That's how social primates interact. So can those two things live simultaneously?

What?

And bad behavior for all of us is really just a sign that our feelings have overpowered our skills. We feel before we think. Our feelings are the most central thing for us. So let's take bad behavior. that would get you rejected.

as a kid. I don't know. What is it? Screaming, I hate you? Throwing scissors at your sibling.

Throwing scissors at your sibling, hypothetically. Okay, great. Certainly. And this is, I think, so important to clarify. If my kid is doing that, I'm not like, this is beautiful.

Like, this is. so... Come closer. Oh, come to me,

That would just be bizarre.

we yell because we just,

it's not okay to throw scissors. They don't go to their room and say, you know what? It's okay to be angry. It's not okay to throw scissors. I'm going to go Google what else I could do when I'm angry.

So I have a more pro-social behavior the next time. Like, I don't think any of us think that's what's happening in their room. What a kid is actually learning is when I feel angry, people won't be around me. So all that does is add shame to anger. Wow, we got a real cocktail here.

Yeah. Shame makes every feeling more combustible. We've actually now set our kid up to be more prone to dysregulated behavior, because not only have we not taught them a skill or set a boundary, we've actually just added fear from that abandonment and shame. All of this to me comes from a very practical, I'm such a pragmatist more than anything else. I'm like, that just doesn't help.

Like forget it doesn't feel good for your kid. I actually care about that too. It's not productive. But it feels counterintuitive.

And if you do this in adult life, you're going to die and go to your room and come back when you know how to swim, because you have to know how to swim. And if we're teaching our kid how to swim and they're not getting it, nobody's watching us saying your daughter's really going to think that you think it's okay. She's not swimming. You're really reinforcing that behavior by allowing her to not swim. We'd be like, that is crazy talk.

I'm not listening to you. We coach our kids to learn the skills they need now so they can swim in increasingly.

probably to learn, maybe more so.

What do I say if I don't send my kid to a room? Sending your kid to a room, first of all, isn't a boundary. It's an act of desperation. It's not actually taking charge in a situation. So to me, if there's a formula, just because it's nice to remember things, simply, it's first always set a boundary when your kid is engaging in a dangerous behavior.

Because our number one job, more than anything else, and I say this to my kids all the time, my number one job is to keep you safe. And it is. And that actually feels so good to someone. You know this, like if you're an adult acting in an out of control way, it is an act of love. when someone kind of says, I'm not going to let you do this because you're imploding.

Yeah, I'm taking.

And I'm to get into why you're so upset and hammered and want to drive a car. But maybe later. That's.

It's fine to intervene physically, not to slap your kids, punish your kids, corporalize your kids, but to stop the.

Because in that moment, a kid cannot be a boundary for their own urge. They haven't yet learned how to do that. We need to be the boundary for a kid. They have not yet learned to be for themselves. So they actually, in their body, encode their feeling and their urge next to our boundary.

That's actually how they start to learn to set that boundary for themselves.

And when then you start to review things, and this happens with my kids too, like I'm not perfect at any of this. I'm like, my son's not respecting my boundary. And I'll say to myself, okay, is it something I'm telling him to do and it would require him to do nothing? And I'll be like, oh yeah, no.

And then I go, stop jumping on the couch. Okay. That's a request. Once my child doesn't listen to my request, my kid is showing me I am not able to listen to your request. Okay.

That's annoying. And it's the truth in that moment. And so if I want my kid to get off the couch, what I have to do is set a true boundary, which say, Hey, listen, I'm going to walk over to the couch. It seems hard for you to listen right now. And if by the time I get over there, you're not off.

I will put my hands around your hips and I will take you down and I will show you an area of our home where you can jump. It's not mean. I always say it's embodying our appropriate authority in the moment. And now I won't say my kid doesn't listen to me. I have a kid who would press every elevator button.

We live in New York City, every elevator, everyone. My other kids actually weren't like this. He just is less people-pleasing. He loves buttons. They light up.

But what's more effective is just getting in between him and the elevator buttons. And if he lunges for it, I'm just going to look at him and say, yeah, I'm not going to let you touch all the buttons, sweetie. Done. That's a boundary.

You then get your PhD in clinical psychology. At that point, does something shift? Or is there a new person that you're looking at, thinking, oh, they're on to something I want to explore further? I guess I'm wondering how you refine your own take on this, because ultimately, that's what one has to have is a take on this. So I'm just curious how we chisel away at it and find it.

They wouldn't. But it's hard to get great data on what you're actually trying to achieve in therapy is long-term change, how you think about yourself, how you're able to regulate your emotions. It's tricky to get data long-term on that. And so I think where I went to grad school, there was definitely a respect for cognitive behavioral thought and the way that more shorter term, pragmatic in the moment, focus could help adults.

I love that about it. And I think that's so important. I don't think. thinking and reflecting on their own changes our behavior.

Also, much more experiential and probably more than in CBT. I do think our past really matters, not to just wax poetic about it, but because actually I think our problems in adulthood come when our past actually just comes alive. in our present. We're not even living in 2023 anymore. We're actually acting out something old.

And so learning to separate that and seeing how it actually comes alive in the room is where I found I made the most traction with people.

And when we understand our own story differently, we actually can make a lot of changes.

I think the only thing I buck up against is not. any one of these is the claim that one would fit all.

And when people say to me, this thing that you talk about, that's been so helpful, or this thing that you talk about, that doesn't land with my kid at all. And both are right. It's an option. If something works and resonates, yes. And if something doesn't feel right, it's not because you're doing it wrong.

It's because it's actually not the right fit for you and your kid.

Just prior, you get an Instagram account. This could be a side interview. We could do two different interviews. We could do Good Inside, as the book, and then we could just do one of your life, which is very unique and preposterous and fun, which is you don't have an Instagram account. And then, some months later, you have hundreds of thousands of followers.

Yes. That's a very bizarre occurrence on planet earth, you would agree.

This part of me gets activated in these situations. So it's really a way of getting to know all the parts of us. And this is one of his books is that there's no bad parts. There's no bad feelings and that our parts developed in a system like a internal family inside of us, based on figuring out how to adapt during our earliest years. And yet, while we all learn to adapt in our earliest years in our original family system, often those adaptations stop serving us in adulthood.

But they've gotten frozen in time. And actually, so many adult symptoms, actually all were childhood adaptations. Even though those things work against us. now, it's very hard to unwind the things that were put in place to protect us. And so it's an incredibly respectful approach to humanity.

I can keep you safe. And this is actually right from IFS. It's so helpful to, like, go to the bathroom and say, really, it's not 1989..

And I love this image too. And it's right from Dick Schwartz that you think about someone protecting you, they're always gazing out because they're hypervigilant to surroundings and they haven't yet turned around to see that you've actually aged and like, you're okay now.

I have to go like, oh my God, you're actually safe. But I have to convince myself of it.

I'm like, and I want you to do this this week. I really have a hard time having a thought that doesn't pair with a very practical strategy. So that again, is just how it all comes together. And I was working with adults. And at the same time, I started to see a ton of adults come to me, not for therapy, but for parenting work.

Around this time, I also got a lot of extra training, because that's always what I did. I was like, okay, who else can I learn from? So I went to a kind of parenting center and I actually learned a completely behavioral approach.

My PhD is from Columbia, but Yale had this extra training. And at first I was obsessed because I think it just lights up our left brain that loves logic and linearity. And I was like, this is amazing. When kids do bad behavior, you kind of in some way extinguish the bad and you reward and get more of the good. So in my private practice, it was this very interesting experience where I'd see back-to-back clients and I do this deep kind of psychotherapeutic work and based in internal family systems and all this experiential work.

And then I'd see parents and they tell me about their kids and I almost switch into this like very behavioral mode. And over the course of a number of weeks, I just started to feel uncomfortable in my parenting sessions. And there was just something in my body. It didn't feel right. How could what I know not only works with adults.

I'm watching adults change their lives in every meaningful way. How could the theory behind what helps them be a 180 degrees from what I'm telling parents? It can't be. But I kind of kept going. And then truly, one day I was working with parents and they were telling me, you know, their kids hitting a lot and I was teaching them how to give a timeout.

And this feeling, it's too much. It couldn't stay this couple. really. I said, I'm sorry. This is so awkward.

I don't believe anything. I'm telling you. I did. And I was like, I really do trust that there's a different thing I would tell you, but I don't know what that is today. I don't think this is it.

I remember I canceled my rest of my clients that day. I was like, I feel like I'm having this crisis. You know, I call my husband.

I had this training.

Like, let's just take the data set as fucked up, but let's also talk about the construction of the experiments and that they already have a foregone conclusion that they figured out. I love it. I'm an addict for social sciences, but it all does need to be taken with a big old grain of salt. That's exactly right. It's a yes and, like 100%.

And so.

I know. I mean, imagine what I could have done had that been the case. You'd be levitating as we interviewed. Oh, my goodness. And I just wrote and I couldn't really stop.

Around this same time, I had been talking to my friend, who's an entrepreneur, about how I helped my then three-year-old daughter through her difficult sleep stage, which was really hard. And everyone was telling me, lock her in her room and she'll cry it out. And it's okay if she vomits. And I was like, I don't think that's the thing again. Like, no, no.

And then I was like, what do I know about attachment? What do I know about skill building? What do I know about emotion regulation? I kind of MacGyvered this sleep thing for her that completely changed her relationship with sleep while building the skills she needed for separation. All good things.

And so, as I was writing, I was kind of like working on maybe putting out this.

because I had done all this. I thought maybe I'd put out this product. And then I was like, you know, I don't want to put out the product, but I had done all this writing. What am I going to do with it? My husband and my sister both were just like, got to put it on Instagram.

And I was like, I'm not even on Instagram. I tell all my clients to get off Instagram. I think it's ruining their mental health, you know? My sister, who's five years younger, was like, I'm going to set you up. I'll show you how to do it.

I'll show you how to do a story, you know? And I was like, all right. I mean, I just done this writing. What else is I doing with it? And then, yeah, it was February 28th, 2020..

I put out a post two weeks before New York City shut down, at least. That was like March 14th. And then on March 14th, I look back at it. It's so interesting. I think I had 200 followers.

I mean, it clearly wasn't substantial. And that day, you know, I created this huge carousel about how our kids will remember more about how their family homes felt during coronavirus than anything about coronavirus itself. Our kids are really looking at us and learning how to deal with uncertainty. Here's how to wire them for resilience and not panic. And the nine slides that I look back on, I mean, the amount of text, it was like five years of therapy and like a carousel, you know?

Right.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

What I remember so interestingly, my husband at that time would really proofread it for me. I'm zero percent perfectionist, so I'd always put things up with like typos.

At that point, you got a swipe up. I was like, I have a swipe up. This is crazy. And then I would have this period, like I'd be playing with my kids. I was like, stop.

I have to like make this video.

You know, it's taught me how important it is to know that when you start something, it's not because you know everything. Because, like, I've learned so much. I've had so many new ideas since I started putting things out there that I would have never had if I thought I had to know all that.

And it was so heartening for me. It was like, oh, there's a lot of people that are not satisfied with this mentality. we've been given about parenting. And yet we haven't really been given an alternative. Not that's concrete and practical, but I think people were looking for it.

Like I hear a lot of people's horror stories. So it's not like at any point. I felt like there was any kind of child abuse going on, but definitely I was watching something. I was like, how could you, an anthro major who knows exactly how babies were supposed to be coming into the world? How could you have thought that this was okay, that they wouldn't be laying next to mom and dad?

It's the most quintessential. first thing that happens is you're in a very scary world. Do you want to be between these two people? And I was like, wow, I really fucked that one up. or I don't know.

I wouldn't do that again. I couldn't believe even thinking how I think that I was like, yeah, yeah, that's what you got to do. They got to be self-sufficient and independent.

To me, it has to be seen in the context of so many other parts of your parenting. A lot of parents sleep train their babies, not because they think they have to be self-sufficient, just because they're like, I'm a mess. I need a fucking break. Exactly. And like the version of a parent I can be, there's not some equation.

Like if you can be 90% better of a parent with, you know, three days of sleep training, it's worth it. But I think it's really harsh, especially in the society we have in America where parents are given no time, where moms are given no time off and to say, yeah, you should always be waking up and have.

I should have said that out of the gates. I have zero judgment of anyone who's doing anything. I just personally was like, well, that kind of slipped through my little filter. I think I apply to most things.

And I'm going to be here in the morning. And I know you can do this. There's many ways to go about it. And then you are present for your baby and you are so responsive. And to say that those three days have some horrible impact to me is a really awful message.

Yeah. And I was telling myself, like,

The second a woman gets pregnant, other women are like, are you going to have a natural birth? Are you going to have it at home? The tests start. Yes. And I just was like, I don't like this.

Stop talking to her about what her fucking birth plan is. It's none of your business. So that to me felt very icky. I didn't like that. there already felt like a way for her to be a terrible mom.

If she doesn't have it in the back of a hay wagon with not a doctor within a thousand miles, I was like, this is fucking nuts. This call to purity, which is totally fictitious. And no one even knows what they're referencing. But then I think it continues to the second, the baby's born. So a little bit of it is triggering to me.

Just any of the exploration I got to own my own. It's just a little bit like, do we need more advice for women? Can you understand at all that being like my little bit of a knee jerk against any parenting stuff, is I just think of some poor mother who's stressed out at home, learning some system that she can never put into action and then feeling like a failure on that front. And their friends have read this book. So I went into this with a little bit of that.

I'm just trying to own the chip on my shoulder about parenting advice in general. I hear that. I have so many thoughts about that. But I do have to jump to the punchline, which is I loved your book. And I'm really, really glad you wrote it just so you know that.

that's where I'm ending. Thank you.

That's kind of part of the same thing. What I find really interesting. And I mean that I think there's so much misogyny and even that framework, because let's say, I don't hear anyone say sports psychologists, they make athletes so anxious and they make them think they're not doing a good job. And now, how could they ever do the thing? I've never heard that.

Money managers make people think that they're not managing their money. No, people are like, how amazing that you have access to a service that helps you do. And yet it's interesting to me that people say this about parenting. I find it offensive to women, the idea that they're so kind of plastic. Sure.

If someone ever consumes anything, I say and says, oh, Becky's making me more anxious. I would tell them, please stop following me on Instagram. Don't buy my book. Don't check out our membership. No, no, no, no.

But the idea that women who have typically been charged with parenting, that's been their job, right? Still, even if you're a 50-50, you're not. Right. Can't decipher what makes them anxious, or what makes them feel empowered, or that they don't deserve access to the same types of resources that would actually help them feel good at their job, that men in more male-dominated fields. Yeah, I think there's like a huge differentiation.

I agree with you. The point I'm.

So the baseline anxiety level between the genders seems dramatically different. I think it's societal and I think it's very unfair. I completely agree with that. And I.

And I talk all the time about, yeah, I yelled at my kids. I did this thing. I wanted to say this amazing line. And, oh, I totally didn't say that. I said something very different.

Absolving parents, and especially women, of the need to, quote, be perfect, I think, is inherent in my mission, especially the focus on boundaries, which, at the end of the day, are kind of to protect your kid, but are really also to protect yourself, and.

I super appreciate it, but I don't know why I felt compelled to set that up just because I was like, oh gosh, here's another book that my wife's gonna read and she's gonna feel compelled to try a whole new system, because the pressure is just so endlessly enormous that she's doing this perfectly. And I'm kind of going on intuition, maybe what I know from being sober as a parent, and I feel great about it. I'm not thinking much about it.

But if something's like, I don't feel good about this or this isn't working, finding out a solution is great and having access to that. What parents?

Well, really, what I'm trying to own, and I'm doing a very poor job doing it, is literally if it didn't have parenting in it, I wouldn't have gone in with anything on my shoulder. But within five minutes of reading it, I'm really, really loving it. And there's several things I want to talk about that I think are such beautiful messages. I think the first one I want to talk about, this is a quote from your book, understanding, quote, two things are true and convincing, quote, one thing is true, are two diametrically opposed ways of approaching other people. So a powerful first step in any interaction is to notice which mode you're in.

When you're in a one thing is true mode, you're judgmental of and reactive to someone else's experience, because it feels like an assault on your own truth. I think this is enormously powerful. just to stop and go. Am I open to the notion that two things are true, or is this just one thing is true? And I'm guilty so often of one thing's true.

I know the great truth. Exactly. And if you just saw it, how I saw.

Doesn't mean I have to say they're free to roam around the planet. It's so impactful with child.

They did that. How do we collapse those two? I don't know. If I knocked a glass over and it broke, I would want to say, okay, well, where did I put that glass? And what could I do different?

It doesn't mean that I think it's cool that my glass broke. That just already happened. So either I can be curious and learn or I can not. So even there, there's a. two things are true.

I'm upset, this broke and I can be curious. so it doesn't happen again. I don't like that. my kid lied to my face and I have a good kid. So I wonder why they did that.

We have to be in that. two things are.

Right. When my kid hits, the only reason I'd send them to their room away is because they're bad. But when I say, wait, they're struggling. I have a good kid identity who's having a hard time behavior, not a bad kid doing bad things. Now we would have a totally separate bucket of.

There's these two forces that are at play on earth and you have to beat the evil out of your child or prevent, you know, there's something very archaic about the assumption to begin with. And I'm guilty of. it's like something crazy happens and you're like, oh my God, is my kid a sociopath? Like you literally go to, are they a sociopath? Yes.

We assume they're a bad kid. And I call that what you're saying, like the fast forwarder. Because also, when you say your kid's a sociopath, you see them hit their sister and you're like, they're going to be in jail or they're shy at birthday party. They're never going to have friends and they're never going to get invited to this party when they're 25 years old. And you miss, wait, like I have a seven-year-old who's feeling hesitant at a gymnastics place they've never been to.

Like, okay. Again, almost like it's 2023.. It's not 2045.. And I do think those two frameworks, am I looking at my kid like they're a bad kid, doing bad things? Or am I looking at my kid like they're a good kid, having a hard time?

Really, everything flows from that difference. Yes. Like the quintessential.

So I will literally separate my hands very far. And I look at one hand for my own stuff too. I'll say, okay, like I'm a good person, or okay, my son's a good kid. And then I'll move my hand very far away and go, he did this bad thing. Okay.

And then I'll almost watch like my hands come together. Like, no, no, no, no. They're very separate. And when you really do say to yourself, pull yourself aside to the bathroom when you can, and obviously doesn't happen every time, we're all reactive, but okay, wait, I have a good kid. You soften toward your kid.

And again, it doesn't make it okay. It actually is the foundation to be able to help them learn the skills they need to actually change that behavior the next time. Yeah. And I think now.

That's right. And given how.

And so your two-year-old is definitely not great at it, right? Definitely not. Sometimes.

I've had those breakdowns. She's had eight of those. She has to be so exhausted. It's so draining to have one of those full meltdowns.

I will be your punching bag. No way. First of all, I'm not going to let someone do that to me. That's not going to feel good. It's also really not helpful to them.

They're like, is nobody the adult who's going to stop me from doing these out of control things? I talk about the pilot metaphor. To me, the essence of what I consider good inside is really sturdy leadership. This is why actually recently, people have been like, are you a management consultant? And I was like, it's highly recommended in my management consulting Slack group.

And I was like, you know what? I am a management consultant. It's the same stuff. It's sturdy leadership. I just happen to focus on the home.

And to me, sturdy leadership in any leadership position, definitely as a parent, is very similar to thinking about pilots. If you're a passenger in a plane and it's very, very turbulent and everyone's freaking out, think about three pilots. So one pilot is almost like pure punishment. Like, hey, stop freaking out back there. Stop being a fucking baby.

Exactly. You're being a baby. This is ridiculous. You're ruining my day. And if you think about being a passenger, first of all, you're like, well, it does feel unusually turbulent.

So do not notice that. You're actually kind of disturbed. Well, like this is enough to make you that off kilter. That does not inspire confidence, right? So that's pilot one.

Pilot two would be like, I know it's turbulent and I'm just going to open.

And to me, the third pilot, which is what kids need, which is what we all want when we're having a hard time, is that sturdy pilot who can both be connected to their boundaries and to the reality of your experience, even if it's not the same as theirs. And I think what they'd say is, hey, I hear everyone screaming and I get it. It feels really turbulent. I believe you. This is scary for you.

And I've done this a lot of times, and I know we're still going to land in Los Angeles. And so I'm going to get off the loud speaker now so I can go back to flying this plane safely. I'll see you when we're on the ground. And everyone is like, yes, because you've had your reality validated and you know that your pilot has a different experience and more confidence than you do. And you actually absorb that.

That's contagious.

And I think so much.

So if your kid is not in their room, this is actually really important. It's important to take them into a smaller space. If you picture a kid having a massive meltdown, like at a barbecue or in, let's say, you have an open floor plan, their experience is this feeling is exploding out of their body. And think about all the space it's taking up. That's actually really scary for a kid, because they really do feel toxic to others in that way, which is their deepest fear that they're going to push people away.

So first step, I would say, is I'm picking you up and I'm carrying you to your room, not placing in your room and closing the door, but bringing an out of control kid to an actually smaller space allows the kid to feel like. my experience only goes this far. It would be like if you were out of control, wasted at a party, and your spouse was like, I'm going to pick you up and bring you to a smaller room, because I'm not going to let you do this to everyone. So that's the first step. Obviously there's a physicality, but the spatial communication is something a kid learns in lizard brain.

They actually.

It's soft everywhere. There's things hanging. It's quieter in there. Yes. And there became a Pavlovian thing.

Like after we had calmed down in there a few times, almost right when we get into the closet,

And the tone matters. If I say to my kid, I won't let you, that is not holding. But you can say that in a very loving, again, sturdy pilot way. Just like I'd want my pilot to say, I'm not going to let you come into the cockpit. I love you, but you're not welcome in the cockpit.

I won't let you kick me. There are times when kids need to be turned around. And I wish we had a way to really teach parents this and kind of have, like the spider hold, not to hurt your kid, to stop them from feeling harmful to others. I think also what I would tell a parent to do in that situation is the self-talk really matters. Like.

I actually have this containment guide, all these steps. And parents tell me when they have a closet room, they put it there. Because also, when your kid's in that state, they don't care if you're reading something. They're in another world in a way.

Oh, you're making a big deal out of nothing. And then, when we see it in our kid, we're not talking to them. We are actually talking to that part of ourselves. Oh, yeah. Right?

Because we see it in them. We say, what do I know how to do? Kind of like what you're saying back with your family. And yet if in that situation, to me, a mantra I just always go to, I'm safe. This is not an emergency.

I can cope with this. And our bodies actually really do start to respond to that reminder. Yeah. You can do, box breathe. There's.

Because, yes, if I see Lincoln doing the thing that I do, I'm like, no, we've been working so hard to not do this. I cannot allow you to develop this. Right. That's where it also gets a little tricky, where I think my scale has slid over time away from nurture towards nature. a little bit.

Just so much of this stuff that in my story, I would have explained with my childhood. I now see just ever present in an entirely different environment. A little bit, it's just like, oh, no, we're kind of hardwired to be these people.

And my explanation of that is my father filed bankruptcy three times. I lived in great economic insecurity, and that's why. We have two daughters. One of them has spent every penny that's ever been given to her. And then some, the other one has, just for no apparent reason, saved every dollar she's ever gotten.

She is certainly not living in any economic scarcity. She is a hoarder like I was.

Unlike, maybe, for your reasons, it could look the same on the surface, but for her, it could be more, maybe I'm guessing she's more cautious. She's less risk-taking.

And so there's only 1% left for the other one. And so they also develop really in tandem with each other. This is like the left-handed,

This does not sound right, but okay. I will look into it. And I've dated two twins. One was left-handed, one was right-handed. But anyways, let's just say that's the same kind of dynamic, which is like, we're facing each other and we play together.

So one's going to get...

They're always giving to their sibling. And I have one kid who's much more selfish, and then we tend to intervene in a ways that only reinforces that. Where we'll say to the quote bad one, why can't you be more generous, like your sister? And what we're really saying to them is you are not a generous person. And then we say to the other one, okay, can you just go second this time?

Because your sister's going to freak out. And so then it gets even more extreme.

Each person thinks they're arguing about the content of the conversation. When in fact, they're trying to defend that they are a real worthy person with a real truthful experience. Yeah, that's dead on. That's really powerful, right? Yeah.

I think.

Can you recognize that? And you keep going. And I think the realness thing is a really important thing for us to consider with our kids. that feelings are so powerful and they're so confusing. When a kid falls down and they cut their knee, they see blood, they see a scrape and there's something useful because they're like, that's real.

I see it. It changed and I'm hurt. Whereas if you think about a kid in a tantrum, they're knowing that their body is like writhing, but there's no, there's no sign. Where's the blood? And so I think kids, to some degree, are always asking us, am I real?

Every time when you validate a kid's emotions, even if you don't agree with it, when you're saying, like you really wanted ice cream for breakfast, even though I'm not giving my kid ice cream, what I'm really saying to my kid is you are real. Your experiences are real. You can trust the sensations inside your body, even if you can't see them. And even if other people can't see them, that's really obviously the basis of self-confidence in life and self-trust, which is why that is so important. And that's the.

The biggest thing that helps resolving conflict is actually more fully understanding each other.

Okay, let's talk about repair. This is my wife's favorite part of your work, by the way.

I'm required to do so. So I think I have a lot of practice with it. But I don't enjoy fucking up, which I do all the time. And I don't enjoy the shame and embarrassment I have after I've fucked up. But I actually like going into them and going like, so hey, last night, this is what I think happened when we were talking in bed.

This just happened. My kid had told me a riddle. I had gotten it right. We're laying in bed eight hours later, and she's going through the riddles. And I go, oh, that's the one I got right out of the four.

She goes, you didn't get that right. And I go, no, I did. I guessed the thing. She goes, no, you didn't. We get into this kind of debate about it, right?

And then we're both mad at each other. Day goes by. Next day, I'm like, that was a shitty way to end that thing, laying in bed. Why do I give a fuck if she thinks I'm right or wrong, right? And I'm like, oh, I know why I give a fuck, because I was dyslexic, and I was in the learning disabled room.

And I'm very easily triggered by you saying I'm not smart. I'm just trying all day long to get you to say I'm smart. And here it happened, and this eight-year-old said something that I felt dumb again. So the next night, I got in bed, and I go, listen, I've been thinking a lot about that debate. we got in last night, and I'm embarrassed to say, but I think I know what's going on.

You know, because of this dyslexia thing, I really felt like you were saying I was stupid, and you're not, and I recognize that, and I was being very defensive, and I'm really sorry that that happened, right? And then she goes, oh, daddy, I would never say you're stupid. You're so smart. And then we just had this amazing moment, and it's so fun. And I've just, in general, I kind of dig going in and telling them how I fucked up, and why I think maybe I did fuck up, and I hope I'm modeling some self-inventory.

I don't really believe you can teach lessons. I think you can just be an example of some. When they happen, I'm kind of grateful that there was an opportunity for it to happen.

After you mess up, you should be like, okay, there's two steps in repair. The first one's messing up. Checked it off, crushed it. Halfway. there.

People say the first step is the hardest step, so, you know, already done that. That's amazing. Look at me. Now, just one more thing to go. And I really, really believe that.

One of the reasons why is what you just referred to. The model of a relationship we have with our kids becomes the model they take into adulthood. It even becomes the model they seek out, what they feel as attraction to other adults. That's actually what attraction is. It's the activation of our earliest attachment patterns.

That's at least what I think of it as, which is why some people will go out with someone and you're like, that person was so nice. And they're like, I just didn't feel anything. Well, if your earliest attachment patterns were one that you felt actually always anxious and insecure, and you're with someone who's more secure, you're not going to find them, quote, attractive right away, because your body's like, this is new for me. I don't really know this, right? It doesn't feel familiar.

Exactly. If I think about what I want my kids to take into the world, do I want them to think I'm looking for a partner who is always attuned to me, who always gets it right? They are going to be very disappointed. So that's also why, when people talk about, quote, perfect parenting, not only is it not attainable, I wouldn't wish that on any child. I wouldn't want Dr.

Becky to be anyone's mom. That wouldn't be good for anyone. It'd be creepy. Nobody needs that. I really mean that.

I take it a step further, and this is kind of.

Because how you're acting is the dude she's going to go out and get. So how do you want to act so that she goes out and gets that dude? That is a very driving force.

Gives you a major leg up. Who has that? Well, maybe your kids will. I'm attracted to someone who can own their stuff that when something doesn't feel good, I learn. it's not my fault.

I can actually expect them to come back to me and share a reflection and learn and maybe actually get closer after that. Because that's what happens in a repair. You feel more connected. Oh my God. Right.

Yes. How do you then reverse it? Because it feels like you're then just doomed. Right. Am I just going to have to be with someone I find super boring and like a loser?

Exactly. Because they're so healthy and it's boring. Well,

So I remember seeing this woman who was constantly, her own words, always ended up with the wrong people. Just so happened. Right. Just so happened. But what we ended up getting to, and there's power and there's so much humor in this, is I was on this date with someone.

I just right away, it was like feeling like amazing. And I was like, oh, fuck. Oh, and she was like, this is weird. I ended the date. You know why?

Your body knows before you do. And actually saying, okay, in that case, it's not attraction. It's actually anxiety and fear. And actually, when you say to yourself, okay, do I have to be with someone boring? Or is this just the first time in my life I'm going to develop new sets of sensations over time that actually tell me this is someone I'm safe with and I'm into.

Now, if I'm going to get really real about it, I think about someone I used to work with, who had a really abusive history. And yes, she would find very, very abusive men. Very exciting. Yeah, of course. Really, in therapy.

She's like, are my choices to either have amazing sex with guys? Because when you're in really abusive relationships, the gap between how unsafe you feel and then how merged and safe you feel during sex is so big that of course it feels.

And the abusive person is also in the swing of winning you back over. So you're getting like 150% romancing. So heightened.

I'm just going to be real. Yes. Those probably are your options for now. That's okay. We're not going to say, actually, no, here's the way.

No, it's just not. And when?

We had Dr. Kat Haukesson once. Oh yeah, Alex Kat Haukesson. She's incredible. She's a sex addiction specialist.

And I was saying, you don't choose the trauma you inherit. You might want to explore that and who's to be judgmental. And she gave us the greatest outline for this, which is it's absolutely fine for you to explore your trauma sexually, as long as there's no secrets and there's no shame. That's all you're looking for. Like, a lot of people are into BDSM that had abusive, but they're in charge and they have the rules and there's no shame and there's no secrecy.

Those are helpful to know. when I'm on and off the right path. I have done it exclusively. You need to be a woman that I is so driven career-wise that I'm going to be fighting for your attention. That is the hottest thing to me.

I got to get a sense that I'm going to have to really earn your attention. That's what I'm hardwired to do. But I think there's a zone within that. Again, I'm not going to be excited by a couch potato. It's just not in me because of who my mom was.

But then there's a realm within. I can pick, a spectrum. I'm going to trade off some of that for some more security, but I'm still going to probably have to play in that zone. Yes, that's exactly right. Monica, I think your.

I do know how to swim, but if I didn't and I was like, I think it's too late,

I don't have time.

And repair with your kids. And it is my favorite topic, because whether you're repairing for the thing that happened last night, like you're saying, or sometimes repair with your kids is patterns. People have moments like, wow, my kid is 10 or my kid is 30.. And I look back and it's not just a moment. It's like a series of moments.

Is it too late for me? And still it's.

That's different to, oh my goodness, what's wrong with me? I messed up my kid forever. And then the learning actually threatens change, because now you have to like avoid that feeling. So you just want to turn away versus wait, I'm doing something brave. I'm considering a new idea, kind of going, I'm a good person who hadn't considered this idea before.

Yeah. You're back to your original premise. Exactly. That actually makes me brave. Someone asked me recently, what is my definition of a good parent?

That feels loaded to think about defining, but if I had to put words to a paper, I'd say a good parent is someone who's kind of just invested in reflecting and learning and growing. That's it. And so, considering new ideas, which often then leads to, hey, you know, I learned this thing. And this way I did things for the last number of years. When I always sent you to your room, I wish I had done that.

And that is a massive gift to give that to your kid. And even if, again,

Someone said to me cycle.

Each generation at best, if you're working incredibly hard and tolerating all of the different feelings that come up, can do what seems like a small shift, but it actually has a massive impact on every.

I committed to it. They walked away. And I almost instantly know, I don't think that was right. I'm embarrassed. I'm ashamed.

I thought I could do better. And probably first stop is let's just pretend this didn't happen and be different going forward. That's how I'll fix. this is, I will never do this again. That's right.

That's like the first little lie. That's like the softest approach you can take is like, well, yeah, I can admit to myself that sucked. We'll just never do that again. We'll keep it moving.

I'm not saying that, but all those moments come from a moment of pure reactivity. We're in lizard brain. I think we need to remember that, because it reminds us, we in that moment were a good person who was dysregulated or overwhelmed or was not able to.

You're like, I don't know how to fix this. That's right. And I'm out of the options that usually work. So for me, I don't know, I've just.

And I'm alone. And I think actually we know in our own bodies, we know it didn't feel good. So I want to go over a few things with repair, which we'll end with exactly how to do it. Can I just be really specific?

Knowing our alternatives sometimes helps us make better choices. And so if we think about what's going on for a kid, so I'll just use me. It's my son. He's now in his room. He's alone.

And again, kids are oriented by attachment. They're always paying attention to the status of their relationship with their parents based on how safe they feel. And they need their parents to be their safe adult as their steward in the world. But now the person who's supposed to deliver safety just delivered fear. And I'm saying this for myself.

This is not like someone listening to me. like, Dr. Becky says, I'm a bad parent. I do this. We all do this, right?

So now my kid is scared because mom became scary mom, which we all do sometimes. So my kid has to figure out how do I feel safe again? Because I can't grow and operate if I'm in a state of fear, it freezes you. Like I literally have to. So if I don't go, help my kid do that by reconnecting through repair, my kid really only has two options at their disposal.

One of them is self-blame. My kid can say, I'm a bad kid. It's all my fault. I'm too much or I'm not enough. We usually tell ourselves both stories at the same time.

We do, right? Even in adulthood. And I quote this in my TED talk, but I think it's so powerful. Ronald Fairburn put it. He said, you know, for kids, it is better to be a sinner in a world ruled by God than to live in a world ruled by the devil.

Which means when kids are overwhelmed and alone, they really only have two options. Is the badness outside of me, in the world and in my parents, or is the badness inside of me? And as long as you believe it's inside of you, you can have control. You can make it better. So kids wire in their body a difficult situation next to.

it's all my fault. And if you think about how many adults have wired those two things together, that's not something adults do. It's actually our childhood stories playing out continued in adult life, which hold us back in a million ways. So that's one. The other one is equally as sad to think about, which is not self-blame, it's self-doubt.

And so a kid can also in the room say, okay, how can I feel safe? How can I feel safe? Oh, that didn't happen. I can't really trust my perception of things, because if that happened, I don't know, someone would have maybe come talk to me about it. And if you think about what that looks like in adulthood, how many of us have things happen?

and we say, did I overreact? I'm going to ask my five friends, what would you have done in that situation? It's really a sign. Like, I don't actually trust that my feelings are real. And if I think about in adult therapy, when I used to see adults, the two stories adults tell themselves over and over that hold them back, they're those every time.

it's a lack of self-trust and it's the prominence of self-blame. And so when I think about that for my kid, when I go repair with my son, I really do mean this. Like I visualize, I feel like when I'm going, I'm like snatching those stories out of his body. I'm like, no, okay, that thing happened. I'm going to intervene because I can actually help you write a very different story.

The event happened, but events aren't. what form our memories, our memory. I mean, this is just to me, a thing that always blows my mind. Memory is not the recollection of events. It's the event coupled with.

every other time you've remembered that event, which is why therapy helps, because you're like, why does therapy help? The events in my childhood still happened, but you've now thought about them in a different context, in a safer environment, with a different framework. And so your story of the events change and then you-.

It's one of my favorites. Like you were right to feel that way. I want my kid, when they're older, if they're screamed at from their partner, to be scared. I would hate if they're like, it didn't faze me. No, I don't know.

You were right to feel that way and that wasn't your fault. And I'm working on managing my frustration. I was frustrated, so it doesn't come out. And what I'm doing in their memory is now the event happened, but it's part of the chapter. It's not the ending of the chapter next to self-blame.

So now they have a story of, okay, that wasn't my fault. And actually, sometimes in close relationships, other people have a hard time and they then come back and explain it to you. And after disconnection can come connection again. That's the story they write. The privilege of going into the world, also with that story.

It's like a triple double down on what you felt was not real. You're offended that they thought this, that you would hurt them.

And this will be a theme, but essentially reminding myself, wait, Becky, I'm a good parent who loves my kid. And I was overwhelmed. I'm a good parent who is having a hard time. That behavior doesn't define me. Again, separating behavior from identity, because if I don't do that, I can't repair with my kid, because I can't face the reality, because it feels like an assault on my motherhood.

Because I haven't done the work of doing that for myself. And kids feel that. They're like, oh, okay, this is not about me. And that's not really repair. And when you do repair with yourself, and you've kind of, I always say, like, reaccessed my own goodness.

Okay, now I'm in a place where I can actually reconnect with my kid. Because now I repair something, it's going to feel good for me. I feel like I'm giving it to my kid. I'm not expecting something. And I'm much less likely to say, look, I'm sorry, I yelled, but if you just got your shoes on, it wouldn't have happened.

We wouldn't be in this situation. Yeah. I want to speak to the skeptics listening a little bit. I love skeptics. Okay.

Because just being such a pragmatist at heart, I would be hearing this being like, okay, I get it. But my kid didn't listen to me when I told them to put their shoes on. So didn't that kind of either cause my yelling, or how do I get them to listen? So there's two things. Number one, our kids.

not listening doesn't cause our yelling. They're separate things. It could have happened before. But we're confusing our frustration, which related to their behavior, with the way we managed or didn't manage our frustration. We're confusing, yes, my kid did something frustrating.

I was frustrated. That is actually very separate from how able I am to regulate my frustration.

I was like, okay, imagine, your son is now married and this is what you overhear. Hey, listen, he says to his partner, I'm sorry, I yelled at you, but if you just remembered the paper towels, I wouldn't have done it. Are you proud in that moment? Are you like, oh my God. So we can't model that type of quote, apology and then expect anything different.

We want our kids to say like, hey, you did forget the paper towels. I'm sorry, I screamed at you. Like that wasn't cool. Separate. So I think it's really important to separate those two things.

And then again, I do think it's so important for my kid to actually listen to me and be able to actually listen, to put on their shoes in the morning, so we don't get to the place. that just feels awful. That is so important. I care about that for families. But actually the best way to do that is truly repairing with your kid.

And then I always say, I can't talk to my kid for 24 hours after a repair. So I don't conflate the two, but then, because I'm reconnected with my kid, I can say to them 24 hours or more later, I'm thinking about the mornings. They're disaster. I can't imagine you like it like that. I don't like it like that.

We're a team. We both want the same things. There must be something about leaving. That's hard. And either let's figure that out.

Can we make that better? Not so I don't yell at you, because it's just cause, like we would both rather have smooth mornings.

I'm driving a thousand miles an hour now. No one's happy in this situation. Exactly. I wonder if you would support this. I like also attaching something very positive to the repair, which for me, and you just hit on it is.

I get excited to do it in this perverse way, because I will be so proud and excited if I watch them grow up and do that in turn. And I know the only way for them to be this version is for me to do it. And so, as much as I don't want to walk in there and eat crow, I am already down the road where I can see how proud I am that they will move through the world that way. Yeah. So it's like very positive, or I've connected at least in.

That's a new, I, Oh, okay. It's not just about this moment. I'm parenting for the long run.

It's still vacation. to me. That means like we eat whatever the fuck we want to go to dairy queen. So if that's true, if that gets cemented, why one in every other thing? And you come to replicate all this stuff.

That's right. You're learning, not just what.

Right. We define that in our family system. Yeah. Now I would say,

It is like, stay the fuck away. Yeah. Does that happen?

I really do feel like I see people in that way. And so people have even asked me a different question, like, is it hard for you to be around friends? Are you always judging their parenting? I'm never judging their parenting. That's not how I'm thinking about it.

And I think when people maybe push back about an idea I have, my response would be like, oh, tell me more about that. You obviously have a reason to think that way. I really don't feel a need to defend or to prove. Because also, like we said, there's not one way to parent. There's not one script that's going to work.

There's not one belief everyone has to agree on. And so I guess to get into something combustible, there really does have to be pushback and resistance. I don't tend to bring a lot of that, because I think I'm so naturally curious. I don't know. I think curiosity and judgment are opposites.

So I haven't thus far gotten into a ton of, but maybe it's coming. I don't know. Well, it requires you.

Oh, you think that? That's really interesting. Tell me more. Both of those happen for me. So I do think I engage, but I feel like I learn a lot from people who see things differently.

I was just talking to a colleague because you basically don't believe timeouts. I think that's bullshit. I think you have the wrong idea. And here's actually why I think they're really helpful. And I would never say back to that person, well, I don't think that's true.

I'm like, okay, wait, I like you.

and then your approach. I think there are plenty of times that a timeout is going to be the best option. And maybe most times for me, it's not going to be. But again, I believe there's some real good mechanisms within us that respond quite well to being in accord with your surroundings and your group. And so there are a time and place for me for that.

I agree. Like someone will say, like,

for, if you don't cry at drop-off, I'll give you a sticker. No, I probably wouldn't recommend that. But if there's just a moment where you're like, I just think a sticker is going to get me over the edge for my kid listening, getting in the bath, sticker chart away. So yes, I agree. Besides for things that overtly harm children,

Kristen's an enormous fan. And I think a lot of people trust her more than trust me and the prevailing messages. I support so much. Like I said, there's so much Gottman in it. And there's also this Repairer I love.

It's a very thoughtful and wonderful book. I'm really happy to have had you on. Thank you. It's out. It's out.

Oh, I guess my last question is, you have to now feed kind of an inferno, as do we. We have like a, we have a vortex that you just cram content into, right? And it just disappears. every week. It's over.

It's like, it. doesn't matter how many episodes came out last week. Do you feel the pressure or the weight of?

Yes, podcast, you know, the place I think I pour most into, but to me, it still feels like maybe I'm still in the stage of feeling like I'm exploding with new ideas, you know, is our membership platform, where, to me, I do feel like parents need a place to go just for trusted resources, right? We all have like SEO, optimized articles, usually, which is not usually that helpful. There, I don't really feel the pressure of it. I feel like, oh, I'm so grateful I have a place to put.