Pushkin. When it comes to raising kids, most of us are familiar with the traditional reward and punishment podel. Your toddler throws a tantrum, time out, your teenager breaks curfew, They're grounded. But is this really the best way to raise happy, healthy adults. On today's episode of our special series on Happier Parenting, le'll meet an expert who's convinced we can do better.
I'm doctor Becky Kennedy. I'm a clinical psychologist, i am a mom of three, and i am the founder of Good Inside.
Good Inside is a company that offers simple, actionable strategies for parents struggling with their kids challenging behavior. It's also the title of doctor Becky's best selling book and the name of her popular parenting podcast.
Doctor Becky's work.
Is rooted in the belief that every child is quote good inside, even when they're acting out. And while our instinct might be to lecture, yell, or take away privileges when our child acts out, doctor Becky thinks we need to be a little bit grateful in those moments because she sees meltdowns and rule breaking as signals important clues that point to an underlying problem, which needs to be understood, not punished. Now does that mean that doctor Becky wants
us to condone bad behavior. No, but she does believe there's a better way to respond.
When a kid hits, when they're whining, when they never listen. No part of me is like, oh, that's amazing, that's your kid's natural expression of their feelings. We should celebrate.
No.
I always say the right answer is often between two extremes. And if one extreme is you see behavior that's bad, and then what we do is we kind of unconsciously assume our child is bad. That is why we send them away. That would bring a punishment based approach. I'm not such a fan. What I think is really powerful is if we see our kid's bad behavior as a sign of what they need. And again, that doesn't mean
behavior is okay. But if I always drop my phone and it shattered, that might be a sign I need a phone protector. Case. That doesn't mean it's okay that I drop my phone. It actually means I have a way of fixing the problem. So if you see your kids hitting a sibling, for example, as a sign of what they might need, you're gonna activate curiosity. You're gonna
end up asking yourself different questions. Instead of saying, what is wrong with my kid, we'd say to ourselves instead, I wonder what was going on for my kid right before they hit? I wonder what skill my kid would need to manage the frustration of sharing a toy with their sibling, but not have that frustration come out as a hit. Makes me think about the difference in a basketball code saying why is my player missing all their layups? Why?
You know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna send them to their.
I'm gonna make them do laps around the court over and over again till they figure out yeah.
Versus a coach that says, wait a second, what is getting in my player's way of making a layup? What skill would they need? And then when can we practice? Ooh tomorrow, I'm going to get them in the gym and I'm gonna really look at their form, and I'm saying, oh, I figured it out. Okay, I'm going to teach them something new, and then I'm going to practice something new. And I don't think any of us would say, oh my goodness, Becky, what a permissive basketball coach. I mean
that coach is basically saying it's okay to misshots. It's so crazy. No, we would say, what a great coach. They're using quote bad behavior as a sign of what might be going on. Then they can understand what's going on. Then they can build a new skill and practice and boom, the behavior actually improves. So that's what the good side approach is all about. But not for basketball, but for kids' behavior. I love this approach for two reasons.
What is it really touches on something that we talk about a lot, which is this idea of growth mindset? Right, Your kid is not fixed, their behavior is not fixed. The goal is skills learning. But it's also kind of putting the parent's role into kind of like the light. In some ways, you are kind of coaching your kids, hopefully towards skills, building towards better emotional regulation, towards better
behavior over time. And I know this is something that you've talked about a lot, right, this idea that parents need to know what their role is. From your perspective, what's the parent's role and how should they be thinking about it?
I love you for so many reasons, but I love you for asking that question. No, this whole thing about what is a parent's role? What is a parent's job. It came from years in private practice where parents would come to me about a variety of things, the tantrums, the rudeness, the clinging, even though they know everyone at the birthday party, whatever it is. And I'd always say to a parent, what is your job in that tricky situation? And they'd always say the same thing, I don't know,
just tell me what to do. That's why I'm big on metaphors like imagine going to an office on the first day of your job and your boss saying, do your job well, and then you look and you realize I don't have a job description. And by the way, I don't know what that person next to me does and where their job starts and ends and my job starts and ends. I feel like in that position, that person would say, how could I do my job well
if I don't know what my job is. Knowing what your job is with complete clarity is a precondition to doing any job well. And so when it comes to parenting, we have to change our first question to what is my job? And I'll give you a definition that actually works for any situation. In my mind, a parent always has two jobs. One is setting boundaries and the second is connecting to your kid's lived experience, which is another way of saying validating their feelings. And let me explain both.
Because these jobs work in tandem, Let's start with boundaries. Boundaries are key decisions we make, their limits we set, and boundaries really ensure that we keep our kids safe. The reason we set a boundary around TV time is because we don't think it's great or safe for a kid to watch TV three hours after their bedtime. The reason I hold my kid when they're crossing the street, when they're flailing and saying let me go, isn't because
I want to have control over my kid. It's because I want to keep them safe and they're not exactly in the right mind streets to be crossing the street. Those are boundaries. Now, to be clear, kids have one reaction to boundaries. Not happy.
To be fair, it's not kids right like when people set boundaries to me, I'm not like super thrilled about that either.
One hundred percent. A boundary is really a way of saying to someone else, you want something, and I'm saying no. Nobody likes having their desires thwarted, nobody does well. So when you set a boundary, and this is so important because we have some unconscious belief in me too that like I'm going to set some really good boundary for my kid, my kid's going to be like that is amazing parenting mom. Thank you, I do need to go
to bed. Thank you for turning on the TV. Never, no child in my house or any child I know who's normal, has ever said that when you set a boundary, which is part one of your job, your kid actually does their job. They feel their feelings. And I know that's an inconvenient truth, but the reason that's our kid's job is kids can't develop skills to manage feelings they
don't allow themselves to have. And so if you want your kid to be an adult who can manage frustration and anger and not be a thirty year old who acts like a two year old, then you want your kid to feel all the feelings when they're two and not three. I say TV time's over, I turn it off. My kid does not say thank you. They say why and all my friends get more screen time and you're the worst, YadA YadA yadda, And now it's actually amazing.
I can do part two of my job. I validate the feelings they have, which would sound like this, Oh, you really wish you could watch TV, or oh, it's the worst when you're watching a show and you can't finish it because TV time is up, or oh I really eat when my TV time is over too. I get it. What I'm doing, and this is really important is I'm seeing my kid's feelings as real. I don't have to agree with them. I don't have to think the extent or intensity of the feeling is right or wrong.
It just is. I'm seeing it as real. And there's a wash rinse for pea. I set a boundary. I think this is right. My kid gets upset, I validate the feeling. And then this is important because parents say, oh so, then just because my kid's upset, they get to watch another show.
No.
Validating feelings goes hand in hand with holding your boundaries. So another example, hay sweety, it's time to leave the park. My kid is gonna say no, I want to stay in the park. I might say something of them like, look, if it's too hard to walk to the car, I will pick you up and carry you because it's really time to go. Okay, maybe your kid listens, then maybe they don't. If they don't pick them up, what is
a kid gonna do. They're gonna kick and scream. And as I carry my kid to the car, I'm going to the other part of my job. Oh it stinks to leave before you want. You probably wish you were an adult and can make all your own decisions. I get that leaving the park is so hard, but I am not bringing them back to the park. I am saying that while I'm carrying them in a sturdy way to the car. And that job boundaries validation. That's always an orienting principle. I come back to.
There's something else you said about the boundaries that I think is really important, because I think sometimes when parents said a boundary, they think it's like they're telling their kid what to do, like stop with the TV. But you've algae that a boundary works a little bit differently. It has that part, but it's actually something else. What is the something else?
All the time I hear from parents, and honestly I hear from nonparents, just adults. My mother in law does not respect my boundaries. My kid does not listen to my boundaries. Let me share my definition of boundaries and then we can hear together why those things don't really make sense. First, a boundary is something I tell someone I will do and it requires the other person to do nothing. So over and over I hear frustration from
parents my kids don't respect my boundaries. And I'll say, tell me about a boundary you set and they say, oh, no, jumping on the couch. My kid is jumping on the couch. And I look at them and I say, stop jumping on the couch. We don't do that. And then we look at that kind of definition. Did you tell your kids something you will do? And they say no? Does the success of your boundary require your kid to do nothing? No? And this is like an aha moment where they're like,
am I not setting a boundary? But there's no, You're not. You're making a request and we have to make requests all the time. But requests are boundaries. This is a boundary. And this is why I always say good inside parenting. It's sturdy. It's not gentle. And I don't mind the word gentle. Everyone's like, is it gentle? I just think the words we use have a power to evoke different parts of us. I know, for me, I'm not really accessing being gentle. I'm not accessing being harsh. I'm doing
the thing in the middle. I'm being sturdy. Here's a boundary. Hey, sweetie, I need to get off the cat. They look at me and keep jumping because I have one of those kids too. This is a boundary. I'm gonna walk over to you, and if by the time I get there it's still too hard to get off the couch, I will put my arms around you. I will place you on the ground and I'll show you a safer place to jump that's not right in front of our class table. Okay, to be clear, when I go to pick up my kid,
would you better bet I'm gonna do again. My kid's gonna say, give me one more chance, two more jumps. I don't want to get off. You're so mean. Does it matter? My boundary is what I do. It's an embodiment of my authority. My kid's gonna probably try to make a dodge back to the couch. What they're saying is, am I more powerful than you are? You gonna let
me override the cockpit and be in charge. And they need to test that because actually they need to know that we are the sturdy pilot who will not let them pilot complain, especially not when they're in that state. And then I would block my kid. And then that other part, Oh, it's no fun to jump on the floor. You wish you could jump on the couch. Oh, I get that. That is absolutely not an option. Ugh, And I guess those are your choices. No jumping anywhere or
jump somewhere less fun. That's so tricky. I have a feeling you're going to figure it out. That to me is the essence of boundary setting, and that, to me is the essence of real sturdiness. And so when parents say you're not punishing your kids, you're just raising snowflakes, I'm like, go watch me in action. You are sorely, sorely mistaken.
But this gets to I think another misconception parents have about the kind of second part, the sort of validating the emotion's part, because I think sometimes parents think that that requires them to be the kind of so called happiness police, that something about managing kids' safety requires managing emotional safety. But you've sort of pushed back against the happiest police idea. Why is it that we have to kind of allow our.
Kids to go through these moments of discomfort? Oh? Yes, you know. These are one of these moments where I'll be out with friends, totally social dinner and someone will make some offhand common like you don't you just want your kids to be happy? It's all we want, right, And I feel like my husband will look at me like, Becky, please, just like he knows where's coming next, Just not and move on. But I can't because I'll be like, no, that's not what I want, And it's so interesting. How again,
then people go to the other extreme. People will say to me, you want your kids to be unhappy? WHOA Like? No, I'm not like wishing unhappiness on the humans I love the most. But the idea of wanting our kids to be happy, I think is a well intentioned but widely misguided wish that actually has the complete opposite impact on kids. They're developing circuitry in their body for what range of emotions am I set up to cope with? How capable
am I of dealing with uncomfortable experiences? I'm talking about things like, mom, I'm the only one in my class who can't read and as a parent, let me to say it's painful when your kid says that, because we love our kids so much, right, I think what we're often tempted to say is something like that can't be true, or everybody reads at their own pace, or okay, but
you are the only kid who can do multiplication. So what we have the urge to do is we see our kid disappointed, sad, frustrated, mad, jealous, some version of uncomfortable, and to some degree we think our job in the moment is to pluck them out of that feeling and
bring them to a happy feeling. Another metaphor I like to think of is like we find them on a bench, and this is the bench if I can't read books yet I'm noticing people around me can do things I can't, which, by the way, will happen for the rest of your life. Or people have things I don't have, or I just feel less than. And when we see our kid on that bench, we see a sunnier bench and we're like, just like, come with me there, it's so sunny there.
Why is this not ideal? Because resilience in adulthood is actually based on our ability to kind of proverbially like sit on all the benches we come across in life. I know my kid when they're older, at some point, they're going to I don't know, be in a class in college where they're intimidated by people. They're going to get a bad grade. They're not going to be invited to someone's birthday party. They're going to get fired for a job. They're going to think they're going to get
a job and not get it. They're not going to get a promotion. They're going to be embarrassed in public. All of the things that happen in childhood won't happen in the exact form in adulthood, but they will happen with the same set of feelings in adulthood. And if when my kid is an adult, what they've learned is when I feel jealous, sad, nervous, mad, less than, I look around for the happy, where is the happy? All that sets my kid up for is anxiety and fragility.
So what's the alternative? And this is going to sound so counterintuitive, but I'll explain it. Let me go back to that example. My kids on this bench are feeling less than, which sounds like I'm the only one who can't read now again, we don't have to go together extremes. I say, it's so true, you're so stupid. Duh, No,
do not recommend. Okay, but if you think about your kid on that bench, what would it mean to just sit on the bench with them in some ways to say to your kid, you're on this bench and you're uncomfortable. I'm not scared of this bench. I don't need to pluck you off the bench. The only reason I would need to do this if this bench was like going to eat you alive. It's just a bench, by the way, you'll sit here a million times. So let me just
PLoP down next to you. And then what you're doing is the most profound thing we can do as parents, is you're making sure your kid is no longer alone. Feelings don't overwhelm kids. Feeling alone in feelings overwhelm kids. And it's actually the experience of repeated aloneness in a feeling that leads to adult anxiety because you get encoded in the overwhelm of being alone. So I just want to give you a few lines because I wanted to
make things concrete. First thing you can say to your kid when they say anything they're upset about I'm so glad you're talking to me about this.
Not just parenting advice, is just out of general relationship advice.
I was talking about this on a podcast a little while ago, and my husband, who doesn't usually listen, was like, you know, those three lines just saying when I talk to you about stuff that's hard at work, like I would like those lines. And so first line is just
I'm so glad you're talking to me about this. The second line is saying to a kid, I believe you, and then the third line is just tell me more, because what you're really doing is you're saying to your kid in this powerful way, I am not afraid of your feelings. They will not swallow anyone. And because I can tolerate this feeling in you, you will be able to tolerate this feeling in you now. Ironically, Laurie, when it comes to happiness, regulating difficult emotions is a prerequisite.
So really, if we quote want our kid to be happy, what we should really focus on is not fixing their unhappiness, but really helping them sit with it and cope with it.
Leting your kids work through their own disappointment is hard it's painful to watch someone you love struggle, especially when your impulse is to step in and fix everything. But just like adults, children need to learn how to tolerate discomfort in order to feel more at ease with themselves. Doctor Becky believes that raising resilient kids involves holding both of these truths at the same time. That we need to let our kids experience discomfort even though it sucks.
After the break, we'll explore this idea of multiplicity and dive deeper into how optimizing for long term happiness often means learning to sit with short term distress. For both children and adults. That happiness lab will be right back. From an evolutionary perspective, our most important goal in life is to make sure our kids survive so they can get their genes into the next generation. It therefore makes sense that parents have a built in motivation to do
everything in their power to protect their children. If your kid wanders near a saber tooth tiger, it's your evolutionary duty to step in and keep them safe. But in modern society, that instinct to protect at all costs often leads to overparenting. The tendency to take over for your kid in nearly every tricky situation. Study after study shows that overparenting can inadvertently hurt the people we love. Most research shows that overparenting can inhibit a child's capacity for autonomy,
problem solving, and even emotional resilience. So, when your son or daughter finds themselves in a sticky situation, when should you let them face the consequences and figure things out alone? And when should you offer a helping hand. Clinical psychologist doctor Becky Kennedy says that parents need to choose their moments of intervention very carefully.
There are times you should swoop in. If your toddler is about to run across the street of New York City, swoop in.
If they're sleeping in on the day of the sat you know, maybe give them a little nudge.
Swoop in, right, swoop in. But swooping in and it has a more surprising impact on kids than we think, especially as they get older, because kids know someone swoops in because something's in emergency, or because someone doesn't see me as capable. And where are kids mirrors?
To me?
This is one of the most powerful things to think about as a parent. If I'm my kid's mirror, then I reflect to them the version of who they are. And so if I'm often reflecting my kid's lack of capability, which I don't think i'm doing, but I might unintentionally be doing by fixing so many things, it can't be surprised that as my kid gets older, I keep saying to friends, why can they figure things out? Why can't they even remember their water bottle? Shouldn't they be able
to do this at age sixteen? Age doesn't bring skills. This is what I always tell parents. People say, at what age will my kids stop having these meltdowns? I feel like it's like someone saying, at what age will my kid be able to swim? And I say, well, are they learning how to swim? No, I'd be like, I'm not blaming you, but like at a certain age, no one's like gifted swimming. No one is gifted competence and capability and confidence and regulation. It's not years, it's
what you do in the years. And so reflecting capability is a really big part of the good inside approach. It's deeply uncomfortable because reflecting capability of your kid has to go hand in hand in recognizing potential discomfort in your kid. And just letting it. That's the way I would say, let it right. And again, am I gonna let my kid miss their sat? No, I'm a reasonable human. Am I gonna let my kid forget their water bottle? When, by the way, we've been talking about remembering your own
water bottle. Yes, here's actually a really important difference. Too often in those situations we do it from a place of frustration and punishment. So I'll say I'm not bringing you your water bottle. You can deal with that. Nobody finds that inspirational. This is very different, Swede. I'm not going to bring you your water bottle. You're a strong kid, You'll figure it out. And when you get home, let's figure out it. Just a better system to remember it.
All the different things that happened that are hard. I really do say to myself, this is amazing. This is amazing learning that one of my kids waited so long and has to stay up late to work hard on a paper that they're now not going to be able to review with their teacher before, even though their teacher said they'll do that and they probably won't receive a great pan. What amazing warning. I love this.
This is a gift, right, Like you know, how much are they going to get better over time? Like they're never going to put things off again because look at the terrible consequences they got, which is so important. But the problem as a parent, though, is that to hold I'm doing this wonderful thing I'm giving my kid learning it's a gift. You have to hold that at the same time as but I love my kid, I'm supposed
to be a good parent. I'm allowing discomfort in a way that I could swoop in and fix and I've committed to that. And that gets to something else that I know you talk about a lot, this idea of needing to hold psychologically, this multiplicity as you've called it, that like you can be a really good parent and you can also let your kid forget their water bottle.
You can be a really good parent and you could not remind them about the homework, and that might cause them to get a bad grade or cause them to kind of have a really tough night when they're pulling it all nighter. Talk to me about this multiplicity. How do we hold both of these things at once? And why is it so important to get good at doing this?
So important? And again, this is where it skills for life. So holding multiplicity is important with your kids, so important with yourself at work in everything. A couple things I want to say about that. Number one, I just want to be on a bashed saying I'm very long term greedy in my parenting approach. Like if I had to choose between short term benefit and long term benefit, by the way, I think we often can get both, but
I would choose long term. So when you do, let your kid experience life, by the way, assuming again, you can't say to your kid and expect it to be effective, See, you stayed up late and you got a bad grade. Again, it's not that it's like, huh, I wonder what happened? What do you to do differently next time? Oh, you'd have to start sooner. I wonder if you have a paper coming up that you would think, Oh, you do what? Oh it's due to wednesdays from now. I wonder when
you'd have to start? Oh, be the Wednesday before. Oh my goodness, that's such a good idea. I wonder how you'll remembered do that? How would I? Oh, what, you're gonna put it in your calendar? Right? Leaving my kid to the well. That is really important. But I think the operating principle around kind of multiplicity that lets me do that is Okay. I see my kid's distress here, but I'm not optimizing for their short term happiness. I am optimizing for their long term resilience. Those are very
different things. I mean, this morning, I hadn't gone to the gym in weeks, and I was like, Today's day. I knew today was the day, just for twenty minutes. I just wanted to get that post of energy in the morning. If I was optimizing for my short term happiness, you better bet I'm staying in bet you would be a bed. And so for being long term greed having that two things are true. My kid is having a hard time today and I can support them and use
this moment to build resilience for the future. We need support for us as parents to be able to do that. Scripts a group of parents are saying, yeah, I'm doing that too. We don't have a culture of supporting parents. We do when you're pregnant. It's actually so interesting to me. When you're pregnant, people buy books, they take CPR courses, they invest a lot of money and time, and we're told in a societal way, that's what we should do as soon as you have a kid. We've really internalized
this idea of maternal instinct. People say, is, madam, it's something I should be able to figure out on my own. I shouldn't need help because of this lack of what we are living with, like all of these fires. It's like whack a mole. And so that's a big picture of my mission is just to change that idea is to say, hey, my guess is, of all of your values, parenting in your kid's mental health probably towards the top
of your list. My guess is if you look at your even expenses and the way you spend your energy, actually investing in the support a parent we need is probably low on the list. It's so out of alignment. Once we have that, it's a lot easier without that. When we're alone, you just spiral.
And this is why I love your work so much, because you're kind of helping parents get these tools, and sometimes using those tools themselves can be really good for parents well being. I mean, one of my favorite tools that I know is one of your go tos is the idea of getting curious, especially when you're dealing with a bad behavior or a failure or a screw up. Why is curiosity such a superpower when you're dealing with failure.
I think curiosity is the opposite of like judgment, and I think so often when we struggle as adults, we just judge ourselves right away. I think that's because when we had hard moments when we were kids, when we had bad behavior, guess what most of us were probably met with judgement. Go to your room. Why would you do that? You're so selfish, you're crying. I'll give you something to cry about. And so we've wired in our
body struggle next to harsh judgment. And even though the harsh judgment part was initially someone else's voice, we've internalized it so much. This is so sad to me. It's become our own voice. And then we're hard on ourselves when we're triggered, and we're reactive to our kids. But the truth is we react to them based on our own circuitry. We can't do something with our kids that we're not working on with ourselves. If I have wired
my struggles next to judgment, then it makes sense. I'm going to say to my kid, what's wrong with you? You're so dramatic, you always ruin things, even though later at night I'm thinking, why did I say that? I promise myself I wouldn't say that. What is the answer to this? Change starts by changing your interaction with yourself, which is why I care so deeply about all the reparenting work we do. That is the most powerful thing to be able to be the parent you want to be,
and curiosity is the key. So let's say, as an adult, I just yelled at my kid. I think judgment activates so quickly. I'm such a monster. I messed up my kid forever. If anyone ever saw me, they wouldn't even believe the type my mother I am. I've said this to myself. I'm like doctor Becky, like I'm yelling at my kid? What is wrong with me? But I think I wonder what was going on for me at that moment, what led me to yell at my kid when they
complained about dinner? And this is powerful what actually happened earlier in my day or a week that probably put me in the up to the brim place I was in. So then complaining about dinner is just a straw that broke the camel's back, and I yelled, this is curiosity. And I think one of the things again that we have to reparent ourselves about, is we mistakenly think being
curious about bad behavior means you're condoning bad behavior. But again, like I always think about other areas, like if I'm curious about why my star football quarterback keeps throwing interceptions, why are they doing that? Is it they're positioning, is it they're timing. If a coach was saying that, I just can't imagine another coach would be like, oh, so you're condoning all these interceptions. It's just like, actually, so weird. Curiosity is the key to change. Judgment is actually the
key to being stuck and never changing, just ineffective. So curiosity, I wonder why I did that to me? Another phrase that such beautiful, compassionate curiosity is I'm a good person. I was having a hard time. I wonder what came up for me at that moment, because usually that's what happens, like something comes up. I have a fear about my kid. I worry people think I'm a bad parent. I worry my kid's a sociopath. Well, as long as I'm thinking about my four year old as a sociopath, I guess
it makes sense that I'm yelling at that. Okay, how else would I have to interpret their behavior to have a different thought and therefore probably be more able to stay calm. See now, curiosity allows me to make positive change.
And these are all cases where you're using that curiosity yourself as a parent, or maybe you did a behavior that you know wasn't so awesome. You've argued that we can use the same kind of technique when we're dealing with a kid's bad behavior. Let's say you know, you find out your teenager lied to you they went to
some party that they weren't supposed to go. To walk me through how you would use curiosity in that way, and maybe your our boundary setting and our kind of validating feelings job as well.
So let's say you have a teenager who lied to you. Lying to me is one of the best things to start with, because lying there's an outlying that is so triggering to us as parents, and we interpret it so personally my teenager doesn't respect me, or we kind of like center ourselves. Whenever I work with parents from the things I say is okay, Let's say you have someone in your life you love, why would you lie to them? So interesting, Moore, I have never had anyone say I would never.
We know that this is a behavior that comes up occasionally, right, right, I mean, why would you lie to someone that you love and respect?
Why do you think you would?
You were going through something terrible, you were really scared, something else was off that was like making this either so scary or so overwhelming that you had no choice.
You know, I'll add to it for me, and I think I would lie because I was scared of someone's reaction. I think I would also lie because on some level I was so ashamed or embarrassed about something I did that if I had to like share the truth, it's almost like I'd have to like relive it again, like I'd have to face it.
Yeah, the lies are off in the doubling down on just being avoidant of what we've done and the shame of what we've done.
Right. People think kids who lie, like, again, you're so sociopathic. Actually, there's something so vulnerable in that moment. They're like, I actually feel so guilty that it's so consuming me that I have to almost pretend this thing didn't happen to survive the moment. Okay, so you have this kid who lies right, and again, let's say we can maintain calm and not be triggered and not make it about us.
How could you use curiosity? And I'm gonna model this exactly because it's gonna create controversy because it's different, and parents are gonna say, isn't that just letting them get away with it? We're so used to this adversarial control mindset. So let's say my kids like, no, I didn't take money from your durer. Meanwhile, I have some like ness cam like seeing my son like take it so obvious. Leading with curiosity would sound like this, this is actually
important in the moment, I probably wouldn't even ask. I would actually say is a life lesson? Never ask someone a question you know the answer to. All you're doing is setting yourself up to get more frustrated with your kid and say, look, I know you took that money from the drawer, and like, I don't even want to get into I just know it. I saw it on the video. I'm not going to lead with the punishment.
I'm not going to lead with a lecture. There must have been something about going out to dinner with your friends that felt so important that you also feel like I really didn't understand that you can be honest with me about and that's not my way of saying, it's okay, but we can deal with the okay not okay part later, And I'm pretty sure you know it's not okay to
steal her lie. What's actually really more important to me is our relationship and figuring out what actually I could do to make it easier to tell me the truth. I know parents listening are like, w tf.
You are going to make me raise a child who will lie to me forever. I would bet one hundred dollars your child will lie to you less because your kid will tell you the truth when they believe they can maintain.
A connection with you when they tell you the truth. Kids are oriented by attachment from toddlers through teens, all of us are. They are primed to notice what will I tell my parent that will make them distance themselves from me? And what can I tell my parent that can still be held in love and safety and in a way when your kid lies to you. Ironically, they're doing that to temporarily preserve attachment because on some level that thinking, as long as I don't tell my parent
the truth, we're still connected. As soon as I tell my parent the truth, we're broken. And so anything we do to further that pattern threat and if you do that again next time, you're grounded. All we're doing, ironically, is making a kid even more predispositioned to lie because they can't beat the evolutionary system that just wants to
be connected to you. When you lead instead with curiosity, you actually strengthen your relationship and you develop a wider range of topics your teen feels comfortable telling you about.
You're also modeling a great path for them to figure out their own behavior, right. I mean, even as an adult, sometimes when I do stuff and I screw stuff up or I you know, lie or whatever, it's hard for me to uncover the reasons behind that. I have to
get curious with myself. So if you're kind of modeling curiosity with them, it also seems like a great strategy to get them to realize, like, oh, this is the same thing I can use when I screw up or what I fail, or when I'm like not pleased with my own behavior.
It's exactly right. I mean, a parent's words becomes a child's self talk. That's also the long term greedy nature of good side. So there's going to be a time when our teen is in their twenties and thirties and they're going to do something that they're not proud of, right,
whatever it is. They lied to their spouse, or they told their friends they couldn't go to dinner because they're sick, but then their friends saw on Instagram they're actually just with other friends, right, And you want your kid to be able to pause and to say, I wonder why I did that. If your kid can do that, which by the way, comes from your curiosity in the face of their struggle, they are going to be a much more successful, resilient th though.
So when you feel that impulse to get all judgmental, whether it's about your child or yourself, take a pause and get curious. Not only is that eagerness to learn more pleasant than feeling judgy, it also has the added bonus of fostering personal growth. But can parents do more than just get curious when a child is acting out? Could we turn these unpleasant moments into positive experiences? What
if we could make these times fun even joyful. After the break, doctor Becky will share a tool that she keeps in her back pocket to make tough parenting moments more playful. The Happiness Lab will be back in a moment. Clinical psychologist doctor Becky Kennedy believes that the traditional reward punishment model of parenting is not just ineffective, it can also cause parents to miss out on important opportunities to
connect with their kids. Like adults, children learn best not when they're feeling threatened or bribed, but when they feel safe and supported and when they're having fun. In fact, doctor Becky thinks we need to bring way more humor and goofiness into parenting than most caregivers usually think.
Playfulness is so important and I just want to name here. It's one of the hardest parts.
For parents because parenting doesn't often feel playful. It just feels like a grind one hundred percent all the time. And so getting back to your hey, it's just funzie time mode can just be really tough.
I think there's that, and I would say I don't think most parents experienced a lot of playfulness from their parents, true totally. People will say, why is it so hard for me to do pretend play when my kid is young, or just joke around with my teen when they're older, and they my parents hold a lot of guilt, like is something wrong with me? If play is hard for you, and if play feels awkward, all that's a sign of is play was likely not modeled to you by the
adults in your life. And so any effort you make to be a little more playful, first all it will be awkward. Anything new feels awkward. But I really want anyone here just to tell themselves that's like a cycle breaking act. I'm pretty brave and amazing to do something with my kids that no one did with me. And so why is playfulness important? I'll give a couple examples.
My kid's towel. Their towels are just always on the floor, and like, I don't know why it drives me not It's like I don't it's probably something inherited from my childhood, Like of all the things, okay, the towels on the floor. It's not like fine that you don't respect me, like you know, but it does bother me. And for so many years I feel like I've said, hey, have you noticed the towel on the floor a couple of weeks ago. This is what I said, because my kids always joked
that I'm so old and I'm over the hill. That's what they like to say to me, you know, And I'll say, this is so weird. I feel like, I see your towel on the floor, but like my eyes at my forties, like they're kind of going and like I don't know. My kids like, yeah, mom, I think you're over the hill, you know, and I don't think there's a towel. Then I'm like really, because I'm gonna like walk over there slowly. I'm gonna get on my knees and just feel. And then while I do that,
guess what my kid does? They go get their towel. And then I go and I touch the floor, and I'm like, oh my goodness, that is so weird.
My eyes are so bad. I meet by bifocals.
How terrible. Yeah, I just think about how that could go pick up your towel. I'm not picking up I'm doing homework. If you don't pick up your towel, now, no dessert. And then I'm like, why did I say that? I don't want to withhold dessert, and then I'm like, Okay, I guess you can have fruit and whip cream. That's not really dessert. I'm making stuff up. I'm getting in a fight. So what's the hardest part here? I actually think a lot of the moments to choose joy and
to choose play, the alternative is in calm. Often the alternative is control and anger. The moments when you want to lead with control and anger are actual the best moments to try to infuse some play. Another example of this, and this is something I've done with younger kids for a while, but I've adapted to an old or kid version. Who is a kid who likes to clean up? Okay, look, no one's raising their hand. Cool, nobody likes to clean up. So what do you do when you have to get
your kid to clean up? Often you lead with anger and control. If you don't clean up your toys, they're all going to be in the garbage tomorrow. My kid's like, well, I've heard that empty threat before. I have something I called to close your eyesact. That's how it goes. I'm just going to close dance and all I'm saying is if when I open my eyes, all the red blocks are in the bin and you can see I'm talking slowly because guess what my kid is doing. They're doing it.
I might I might fall on the ground. I might do when I was gonna say you're I might do a butt dance and I might slap my butt. I just think about like a boss at work being like, oh my goodness, if your project is done, I might fall to the ground and do a butt dance. I feel like I'm like, I'm gonna finish my project. I want to see that.
You know, if all you need to do to get the house clean is the butt dance, like bring it, you know.
Yeah, here's what I think. I also want to empower parents with people will say that won't work with my sixteen year old. Whenever you say that won't work, it's really limiting. Why does the close your eyes hack work? Okay? Number one, you lead with trust and not control. If you think about saying to a kid, clean up and then you just stare at them again, imagine trying to do a report with your boss watching you at the computer.
You'd freeze. If your boss at work says I trust you to do this and walks away, You're gonna do it and then add something silly and ridiculous. Trust silly ridiculous. So for your sixteen year old, you could say, look, one of your chores is to clear the table, or you know, to make your bed. I'm gonna go check
on your sibling. If when I get back here that that is made, I don't even know what I might do, And I might just like delt into a ridiculous song that like, all you guys are singing and you're gonna tell me, Mom, you're so annoying. This is so cringe. I just might do this and my sixteen year old will roll their eyes, but they'll probably have a smile
on their face and I walk out. They feel more connected to me, there's a little more joy, and I bet the likelihood of that bed being made just skyrocketed.
I love this because you're able to get stuff done without the negative emotion, right, And I feel like, if only we can make parenting a little bit more goofy, a little bit more joyful and fun, a little bit more connected, parents would just feel so much better all the time.
I think that's right, and I think pushback I get is when I said, so everything has to be a game can't my kids just listen? But I think we underestimate how much as adults we kind of cooperate with other people for the same reasons, like for fun. At the end of the day, cooperation and listening just means I'm doing something you want me to do that I don't want to do. Because anytime you say to a sixteen year old, hey, you can be on your phone for two hours, I don't know anyone who's like, I'm
not dealing it. When we're talking about cooperation, we really mean I want my kid to do something and they don't want to do it. So as an adult, if you think I don't want to do something but someone else wants me to do it, why would I listen to them? Like if I'm having lunch with you, Louri and one of my friends walks by and it's like, can you guys both come help me pack up my apartment and I'm like no, and they're like, well, if you don't do it, I'm never going to be friends
into it. I'm like, yeah, not doing it. If they say I have, it's like amazing, I don't know music to play and I'm going to get some like ice cream deliver or what do you think I feel like you and I might be like, okay, yeah, lay in levity is always a motivator to do things you don't want to do. And so it's not do I have to play games? Why can't my kid just listen? It's actually kids operate based on the same principles adults operate based on. I think this final insight is so important.
Kids are motivated by the same principles that adults are. They prefer connection and validation to anger and judgment, and they respond way more favorably to humor and fun than they do to being forced. I'm so thrilled that doctor Becky was able to share all her insights with us today. Her good inside approach is a reminder that if we respond to our kids defiance as a signal of unmet needs or lagging skills, we can some and the curiosity needed to discover what's really going on and react a
bit more happily. But let's do a quick recap of the tips doctor Becky shared today. First, we need to remember that the job description of being a parent involves two separate but important roles. We need to set boundaries, but we also need to validate. The boundary part keeps children safe and grounded, while a validation part helps us build trust and connection. But validation doesn't mean giving in saying I.
Get how hard this is while holding the line, We'll teach your child that their emotions are real and manageable without rewarding that not so great behavior. Second, parents do not need to fix a child's feelings, They just need to make space for them, So challenge that happiness police mentality. Your goal is not to make your kids happy all the time, but to teach them that they can feel safe sitting with this comfort, a lesson that's super important
for handling real life adversity. Later on Tip number three one end out shoot for long term greedy parenting, Try to avoid going for the kinds of short term comforts that prevent resilience in the future. But give yourself some grace while doing this, because parenting for the future is not easy, which gets to tip number four multiplicity. Remember that you need to hold two truths at once. I love my kid deeply, and I'm okay letting them face
a tough moment. Tip number five summon curiosity. Curiosity leads to understanding and change, but judgment usually keeps us and our kids stuck. Tip number six is to choose playfulness over control. Bringing the fun back to tough situations can lead to connection and motivation without all the power struggles. So the next time you're tempted to lay down the law, maybe try a butt dance instead. Because play doesn't just make parenting easier, it actually makes it more joyful too.
And today's final tip number seven, always give yourself and your child the benefit of the doubt. As doctor Becky often says, even when we're not at our best on the outside, we're still good inside. Next week on the Happiness Lab, we'll continue our deep dive into strategies for happier parenting. We'll be asking what can we do to better motivate our kids. We'll learn about the power of
developing what's called a mentor mindset. We'll see that there are ways to hold our kids to high standards while validating their agency and independence. We'll also hear how these same strategies for collaborative troubleshooting can help you on the job and in your relationships too. That's all next time in our special season on Happier Parenting. On the Happiness lab with me, Doctor Laurie Santos