How early attachment scars can impact us forever

I'm Dr. Becky Kennedy. I'm a clinical psychologist. I'm a mom of three, and I am the founder of the online parenting platform called Good Inside

Chapter one, rethinking how we learn, grow, and change. So I began my career as a clinical psychologist teaching parents how to give timeouts and punishments and rewards

That's how I was trained. And so there were all these moments in my private practice

Parents would come in. My kid's having a tantrum about something ridiculous. My kid is lying to me

My kid is talking back, whatever it was. And I'd say, okay, let's learn how to give a timeout

Let me teach you how to give a timeout. Let me teach you how to do a sticker chart. So I was doing that for a while

Then I had my own kid. And I also just started to reflect on my own childhood

and what moments really helped me and what moments didn't. Plus something interesting was happening in my private practice

In my private practice, beyond seeing parents to talk about issues with young kids

I was seeing adults for therapy, for couples therapy. And I felt really good about the way I was working with adults

It was a combination of, you know, internal family systems and attachment theory and somatic work

And I'm just a very practical person, so I'd always give homework for the week and so many different things

And I watched adults change their lives. And what I knew is that when adults would come to me for therapy and say things like

oh, I know I talked about asking my boss for a promotion, but I just didn't do it

Or I know we're working on my anger, but I yelled this week

I would never say to those people, give me your phone. No dessert for a week

I want you to leave my office and come back when you don't yell

I want you to leave my office and come back when you ask for that promotion. I mean, can you imagine the therapist

just I would hope any client would say, well, I'm never coming back to see you again. Why would adding shame and blame help me improve my behavior? Like literally, what's your theory

for why that would even work? And it just struck me because I'd have these sessions where I was

seeing adult and then parent of a young kid. And I just started thinking there is no way that what

adults need to change could be at complete odds with what children need to grow. And then I realized

wait, I actually think we're like causing all of these problems in childhood and trying to fix them

in adulthood. It's just a remarkably inefficient system, which is not a way of saying, I think we

can be perfect parents. We cannot. And we're all going to struggle with things. And I hope my kids

go to therapy to talk about things in their life. But we don't have to approach our kids with

punishment and harshness. And if we do, why would we expect them to actually thrive in adulthood

We're actually trying to unwire all of that self-criticism and self-blame that we have as

adults from our childhood, so we can finally have a little bit more groundedness and perspective

to actually make the productive changes we want in our life. Okay, so I was in this moment in my

private practice. And I was seeing parents, and I want to be honest, I was still kind of ignoring

that feeling in me like, okay, well, here's how to do a timeout. Here's how to do the sticker chart

And one day in my private practice, all I can say is the dissonance, I think, in my body

it just became too loud. I honestly couldn't focus. And I had these parents in front of me

and I was teaching them how to do a timeout. And I ended up saying to them, I'm sorry, I actually don't believe anything I'm telling you right now

and not surprisingly, they looked at me and they were like, why am I paying you any money? I'm going

to leave your office right now. And I was like, hold on. I feel like I just need a little bit of time. I know there's a better way. And I was actually thinking like, I just want to take

everything that I know helps adults and helps them rewire and reverse engineer it to parents

to give to kids right away. But I didn't know how exactly yet. And I knew I wanted that approach to

be super concrete and practical because the one thing about timeouts and sticker charts that I

think parents love and me too, is that it just tells you what to do. We're like, well, just tell

me what to do. We need something to do. But I was like, we can definitely upgrade what to do from a

sticker chart and a timeout. And, you know, these parents essentially in my office were like, we're

just going to go find someone else to talk to. And I was like, I totally get it. I'm so sorry. And yes

I will definitely refund you for the session. And then I started this just surge, maybe is the word

of new ideas. It's like once I finally said this thing, I had the openness to write down so many

ideas. And I think what started was just stripping away all the assumptions that we've all accepted

as true. If you don't punish bad behavior, you're basically reinforcing that. Is that true

Like I have moments that I'm not proud of with my husband and he doesn't punish me

but I don't think he's reinforcing bad behavior. And if he said to me

Becky, if you yell at me one more time, I'm not gonna eat dinner with you for a week

I just don't think that would inspire me to change in a positive way

Now, I don't expect him to be kind of a doormat in the other way, but if he said

whoa, that was not okay. And there's probably something going on with you

because you don't usually act like that. And let's get to the bottom of that. I actually think that's probably what you need

And honestly, it's probably the thing that's also going to help you change. So let's figure that out together

No part of me would think, oh, my husband really lets me walk all over him. It's actually a crazy thought that we would only have if we have an incredibly negative

view of humans, which I do not have. And when I started to question this approach, I was left with two foundations, really

Number one, we are born good inside. That doesn't excuse our bad behaviors at all

but inside we are born good. And actually that's really helpful to know because it creates a gap

between good identity and bad behaviors. And it allows us to wonder, well, why would a good person

do a bad thing? And from that question, we can actually intervene much more effectively

And the other thing I realized is kids are just born with all the feelings and none of the skills

to manage those feelings. And feelings without skills always come out as bad behavior

And so the idea of good inside is that we can separate behavior from identity

And in doing that, we don't become permissive parents. We actually become effective leaders who can teach kids skills they didn't have in the first place so that not only can they improve their behavior, they can actually grow up and be resilient, successful adults

So let's jump into this idea about how behavior is different from identity

and then very practically how that idea comes to life in managing your kid's difficult behavior

The tantrum, the sibling arguing about something so silly, maybe the I hate you to your face or lying, all those hard situations

We have a habit as humans for many reasons of seeing someone's bad behavior

and kind of assuming we know everything we need to know about the person

Someone's late to work, that person is lazy. our kid hits another kid, they're a hitter, right? And then even we take that moment, we tend to

project forward, oh, they're always going to be the bad kid in class. They're never going to have friends And if you think about what really happening here is there a conflation of behavior with identity And one of the reasons this happens is behavior is observable and identity isn So the quickest thing for our mind to do is we see behavior hitting we assume identity

bad kid. But actually, this isn't what's happening. This is what's happening

Behavior is identity, and there's no space in between. The other reason we tend to do this is because most of us grew up in homes where we were

seen as our worst behavior. Nobody saw us as a good kid identity who was having a hard time

behavior where those things were separate. So we've actually wired those two things together

One of the life-changing ideas I think around good inside is to separate behavior from identity

And this is as life-changing in parenting your kid as it is in relating to yourself

as it is in your marriage or your work relationship. And what's really important is people say

oh, so you're just letting your kid off the hook? They're a good kid having a hard time

so it's okay that they're hitting a sibling? No, not at all

I've never seen my kid hit another kid and say, oh, let out that anger

You're a good kid letting out anger. I love it. That would be so bizarre. Seeing my kid as a good kid having a hard time

allows me to intervene more like a coach than someone who's just delivering punishment

That's really important. Because when you realize, hold on a second, I have a good kid having a hard time

in the moment, I'm gonna swoop in. I might even say, whoa, I'm not gonna let you

hit your brother. I'm gonna pick my kid up and carry them to the side. And I might, if I'm on my game, even say

you're a good kid having a hard time and I'm going to help you through it

It's one of the most life-changing things for kids to hear. And so many parents have said that simple phrase

saying to their kid, you're a good kid having a hard time has de-escalated a hard situation in a way nothing

else they've ever tried has. And if you think about it, that makes sense. Think about your own

hard moment and think about the way people look at you like you're a bad person. Maybe it's happened

in a recent argument with a partner or at work and you just get this look like I see your bad

behavior and I kind of am treating you like a bad person. We have shame. We spiral. We get worse

there's nothing more powerful in adulthood as someone saying to you some version of

hold on a second, you're a good person. You just said something that I have a feeling

you didn't really mean. Let's take a moment to cool off. We can try this again. In our hardest

moments, we are all desperate to have someone else see the inherent goodness inside of us

And sometimes we need someone else to see it before we can access it ourself. Let's take

lying as a situation. Very triggering when our kids lie to us. Recently had a parent say

I have a Nest camera. I saw my teenager steal money from my drawer. I asked my teenager about

it. I said, nope, I didn't do it. Separate but related, never ask someone a question you know

the answer to. You're actually just trying to catch them in a lie, which makes anyone defensive

But if we think about this as a good kid having a hard time, we see it very differently. It doesn't

mean I'm going to throw my kid a party for stealing money, not at all. But I'd probably say

something like this. Hey, I saw that you took money from my drawer. Hold on a second. This is not about

to be a punishment. That would be way too much short-term thinking. I know you're a good kid

And there must have been something going on that you didn't think you could come ask me for money

for whatever you wanted it for. And it's true. I might end up saying no, but it's really important

that we have the type of relationship where you know you could come to me

Honestly, that's probably only becoming more and more important as you get older and things get even trickier in your life

So what was going on for you? I just wanna actually understand, understanding what was happening

is so much more important than the behavior itself because that's the only way we can get ahead

of everything that's gonna happen after. Now, I know what parents think. We traditionally think

isn't that permitting the bad behavior? Understanding the reasons for a bad behavior

is not at all the same thing as permitting behavior. And we don't think about that in any other way

If you think about a kid on a basketball team who's a really good player, but has an awful couple games

and you think about the coach saying, hold on a second, I'm taking you out for this game

but tomorrow let's go to the gym together. Let's really figure this out. What's going on with your layups and your passing

Everything is off. I'm on your team. I want to understand what's happening. I just don't know one parent who would say

I don't want that coach for my kid. That coach is permitting bad behavior

That coach is basically telling my kid It's okay to have a bad game. It's bananas

None of us think that. You know what we all think? That's the coach I want. That coach actually is trying to get to the source of what was happening because that's

the only way you can actually improve behavior. So a lot of people ask me reward charts, timeouts, stickers

I feel like these have worked to improve behavior. Like, why would I depart from these methods

So first of all, I'd call into question how effective these methods are

And also a lot of studies that show short-term impact don't tell the whole story of child development

Anything that's fear-based, sometimes you can get kids to short-term comply. I don't think that's data worth bragging about

What we know is that childhood is an amazing time for kids to learn the skills

they are going to need for life. I don't know if any of us really think

I learned skills by being punished. You do have a model of what not to do, I guess

but nobody's helping you know what to do. Let's take jealousy as an example. Why do kids hit

siblings? Sometimes they're just jealous. Oh, my sibling has a truck that I really want to play

with in this moment. I'm jealous. I'm frustrated. I don't have the skills to manage those feelings

so it comes out as a hit. Now I get a timeout for not hitting, and is that going to work

Well, fast forward many, many years. I don't think I'm going to be jealous of my sibling in my 20s

that they have a toy truck that I don't have. But you better bet that when I see my sibling

have a job that feels more successful than my job or own a home that is bigger than the home

I can afford, I'm going to feel pretty jealous and frustrated. And if I don't have skills to

manage those feelings, I don't know if it would come out as a hit, but it would come out as pretty

toxic behavior. Skills aren't gifted to us with age. We don't magically become able to manage

our emotions when we become 18. That's not how it works. We learn how to manage our emotions

through our earliest relationships. I always tell parents, kids can't learn to tolerate feelings

we can't tolerate in them. So if my kid is jealous and frustrated

and that comes out as bad behavior and all I do is send them to their room

maybe short-term for some kids, for people-pleasing kids only, not for the non-people pleasers

They just escalate when you punish them. My kid might look like, oh, I'm going to change my behavior

I'm just so terrified of my parent being upset with me. And I can get my kid to comply. I always

find this interesting I never met one parent who says oh I so proud of my 30 daughter She is so compliant She does everything people ask her to do She is so attentive to what everyone wants of her

that she's just always taking care of everyone else and doesn't really ever take care of her own needs

or even know what they are. I've never heard that, although that is the thing that leads to so many women essentially breaking down

You don't just get the skills to manage your own feelings at a certain developmental milestone

and punishment and rewards are purely behavior focused, they do not teach skills

Just like we don't punish and reward kids into learning how to swim, we teach them how to swim

We teach them skills and importantly with swimming. We understand that just because I'm teaching a kid a skill

it doesn't mean my kid's gonna swim tomorrow. It's actually interesting. We tolerate the length of time

it learns how to swim as a parent, even though those are very expensive lessons

a lot of us put money toward. We know this is going to take time

And swimming is a skill. I think that's actually a very important life skill

Emotion regulation is an even more important life skill. And so how I want parents to start thinking is not just in terms of short-term behavioral

compliance, which, by the way, works against someone later on. But actually, I have this window of time where I can actually teach my kids the skills that

are actually going to be the most important skills of their life. And punishments and rewards just don't teach skills

So many times I'm asked, is good inside gentle parenting? I actually think the term gentle parenting has probably been misrepresented, but it's

just not a term I identify with. So I'm just going to put it over here. And one of the reasons I don't identify with it is I think some of our most important parenting

moments, the word gentle just isn't a word I would use to describe the feeling I'm accessing

in that moment. Some of my best parenting moments, even though they're the hardest, is when I do something

that I just know needs to be done and is for my kids' best interest long-term, but requires a lot

of trickiness and hard feelings in the moment. And I think those moments call for sturdiness

like a lot of conviction. And really, if we zoom out, I think Good Inside is just a leadership

approach. So it's really a sturdy leadership approach. I love the word sturdy, and I'm going

to define it. But one of the reasons I love it is it has a feeling associated with it. And it takes

it out of just being a word and it does something in our body. If you think about someone in your

life you consider sturdy, you can kind of conjure up this thing about them where you can kind of

locate them like, oh, I know where you are, but they also were able to connect to other people

There's something happening there in just the feeling of the word. So if I think about a sturdy

leader, they're able to do two things at once. They're able to ground their decisions in their

own values. They can embody their appropriate authority in a situation. So they're connected

to themselves. At the same time, a sturdy leader is able to understand other people, hear them out

maybe even understand their reactions and feelings. They're able to connect to other people

A sturdy leader at the same time can connect to themselves and someone else. So let me explain a

metaphor because it's actually the best way of bringing this to life. So imagine you're on a

plane and you're a passenger. I'm a passenger too. And it gets very, very turbulent. So turbulent that

everyone is kind of screaming in the passenger cabin. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. Okay

Let's imagine three announcements you might hear from a pilot. Okay. Announcement number one. Stop

screaming back there. You're making a big deal out of nothing. You all ruin everything for me

Stop being dramatic. Now, I think we all know that wouldn't really make me feel better

First of all, I'm wondering, is the pilot missing the intense turbulence? And is the pilot so threatened by my being nervous that it kind of throws them off

Yeesh. That's kind of like when we say to our kids when they're melting down about not having ice cream for breakfast

You're so dramatic. You're making a big deal out of nothing. We kind of really lean with invalidation

I'm not able to connect to the other person. and see that their reality is real for them, even if it's not real for me

Okay, that's not the announcement we want. Here's pilot two, also not the announcement we want

Oh no, turbulence, I'm opening up the cockpit doors. If anyone back there kind of knows what to do, please come in

Now, if you're like me, you're not even scared of the turbulence anymore. You're just terrified that this person is your pilot

So what's happening there? The pilot loses themselves. In the first kind of situation, they lose connection to someone else

In the second, they lose connection to themselves. They see your feelings almost as contagious

You're nervous, that means I'm nervous. And we're in this exact same situation together

That's kind of when we say to our kid who's melting down over breakfast, fine, have ice cream for breakfast, just stop tantruming

And importantly, I'm not making that decision because I actually think I want to give my kid ice cream for breakfast

which could be my decision. And I'm doing it because I really, really hate seeing my kid upset

Their feelings kind of come into my body, and I just want that feeling for me to stop

Okay, let's get to the third pilot, because I think this is the pilot we all want. Hey, I hear you screaming back there

I get it. You're nervous because it's so turbulent. That's okay. Scream away

Do your thing. I know what I'm doing. I've been through this before

and I'm going to stop this announcement now and go back to doing my job and I know I'm going to

get us to our destination shortly. Interestingly, the turbulence could stay the exact same

maybe even get a little worse, but suddenly I have a deep breath of relief. Why? Two things

that sturdy leaders do. They see your emotional reality as real and they care about it while they

are not overwhelmed by it themselves. That means they actually have a boundary between you and them

I can empathize with your feeling precisely because I'm not taking on the feeling myself

I can see that you believe you're in this storm. And at the same time, I can see calm and hope and

safety on the other side. I can do both of those things at once. That's kind of when we say to our

kid who's melting down about wanting ice cream for breakfast. I get it. You really want ice cream

Oh, I would want that too. You wish you could have ice cream. And ice cream's not an option

sweetie. It's okay if you're upset. We're going to figure this out. And when you want

let me know something else you could have for breakfast. I can see my kid's emotional reality

but I'm not taken over by it. And I have this sturdiness in the middle of the storm

And that's exactly the type of leadership our kids are looking for from us

Chapter two, understanding our own factory settings. So attachment theory really influences a lot of how I talk about day-to-day moments in parenting

Attachment theory was popularized by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth a very long time ago

And really the foundation of attachment theory is the idea that the nature of the relationship we form with our kid in their earliest years is something that impacts them for the rest of their life Connection for kids is the key to their survival It really an evolutionary force

Attachment is the key evolutionary force for kids because for a very, very long time

more than almost any other animal species, a human child truly can't survive on their own

Yes, they need food, shelter, water, but they get that from their parent. And so kids are always looking, what allows me to stay connected to my parents

what parts of me are lovable and understandable and what parts of me kind of exist in aloneness

And those parts that exist in aloneness become very dangerous, right? And often then have to get

acted out. They're really learning with us, who am I? What feelings am I allowed to have

What can I expect from people around me when we're going through hard situations

Is it okay to be mad at someone I love? Is it okay to mess up in a relationship

Do I have a pathway to recover? Or is that something that seems almost unrecoverable

What parts of me get love and connection? And what parts of me are kind of met with

we don't do that in this family, and I kind of have to learn, ooh, danger, put them away

And I take those lessons from my parent because in a way my parent is my world

And I start to generalize them as I get older to the world

And so the nature of a relationship our kid forms with us becomes kind of a blueprint

Or a friend of mine named Maileek calls it her kid's factory settings

where I love that because we can change factory settings. We can change a default

And at the same time, the factory settings our kid goes into adulthood with

are pretty powerful. So, for example, when my kid has a meltdown about something that I think is small in my adult life

but matters in my kid life, I don't know, maybe, oh, I'm not with Sophia in class, I can't go to school this year

My kid's melting down, they're crying, it's all your fault. Of course, I have nothing to do with it

But if my general pattern of responding to this is something like, you're being ridiculous, if you keep crying, I'm taking away

I don't know, fill in the blank with whatever it is. my kid does not learn. I'm having a big reaction to classes in second grade and I can respond more

calmly next time. No. They learn a couple things. Number one, it's not safe in my closest relationships

to feel upset. When I'm very upset about something in my life, I should expect the people close to me

to be very turned off by that and want nothing to do with me. That's one lesson they learned

Another lesson they learned might be, oh, maybe I don't know how I feel

My parent did always tell me I overreacted to things, so I guess other people have a better sense of how I feel than I do

Now, if we just take those two lessons and we fast forward, this might sound obvious, but I always think about it

we have the same body today as we had our childhood. It's a collection of all of the

memories. And our body likes to generalize. Just like you learn to look both ways before you cross

the street early on, you could be in a totally different environment in adulthood. And if someone

said, you don't have to look both ways here. You can just cross the road. Cars won't hurt you

Your body literally wouldn't allow you to do that because it took an early lesson around safety

and has generalized. It's true, I've never been to Tokyo, but I'm going to assume the same thing is true

as it's always been. I'm going to look both ways to keep me safe. So now let's say my kid is no longer in my house

and I'm making this up, is married to someone and they're really upset about a bad meeting at work

Their body's going to kind of do an inventory. Is this safe, let's say, for me to talk to my husband about

Or am I basically going to expect my husband to tell me I'm making a big deal out of nothing

So then I don't talk about it. But the feelings remain. You know, it probably happens

I don't know. I'm probably snapping at my husband about something totally irrelevant. I'm probably super short with my kids

I'm probably acting it out in some other ways because our feelings don't lie

That's one kind of legacy of attachment. Another legacy is when we invalidate our kids all the time, which sounds like you're dramatic

You're making a big deal out of nothing. This is a disproportionate reaction. They doubt their emotions in really dangerous ways

I'm just going to go for it because I'm pretty direct. Let's picture a girl who's now at a bar at age 20 something, 25

And someone comes up to them and they're kind of flirty. It feels fun. Stranger

They don't know. And then it goes a step further. Come home with me

And that girl, let's say, initially has a feeling in her body like, I don't know about this

Well, what's the attachment lessons that she might have learned early on

in totally different situations, but the same circuits. Other people do tend to know how I

should feel better than I do. And then she hears, come on, don't make such a big deal out of it

It's just going to be fun. It's true. I do tend to make a big deal out of nothing

And I know it's so easy to say, that is crazy. That has nothing to do with freaking out about

classes in our body, in the inventory that happens around do I trust my emotions, do I listen to

what's happening, is something that's a big deal to me. Even if it's not a big deal to someone else

can I go with my gut or do I use someone else's reaction as a barometer of what I should do

Those are absolutely the same situations inside of our body. Attachment theory is this idea that

our earliest relationships form the blueprint for our later relationships. But internal family

systems is basically the idea that inside our bodies, we have many, many parts of us. So if you

put that together, you could also say the way we develop parts when we're young will also play out

in our adult relationships when we're older. And what internal family systems posits, which is so

powerful is that all of our different parts came from an adaptive place. They were all trying to

figure out in our earliest years, what do I need to do to survive and adapt in my family of origin

So for example, let's say anger was not something you could safely express toward your parent

The truth is anger is a powerful emotion. So when we're young, we tend not to say to our parent

I'm angry at you. We tend to say I hate you, right? Or you're the worst dad in the world

You don't do anything for me, even maybe after our parents just took us to an amusement park

right? Now, when that feeling comes out, if we were met with some type of danger, right? Go to

your room. You don't say something like that to me. No insert punishment here for a week, or maybe

Maybe worse, maybe we were hit. Then what does my body as a kid have to learn

I actually don't learn I should have expressed my anger in a better way

I actually learn anger is not a safe emotion. If I just didn't feel angry, I would have been a lot safer in my home

Now, from an internal family systems perspective, how do we stop anger? It's kind of hard. It's a natural emotion

I developed a new part. It would actually be called, and it's so beautiful, a protector part

That's trying to protect me from feeling that anger. It's trying to really help me stay safe

Now, the protector part might have to use some extreme methods. It might need to say to me, you're a horrible, ungrateful person

No one else would feel this way. And I know that sounds mean. Dr. Becky, that doesn't sound adaptive

But anger is pretty powerful. And if it was so scary to express anger in your home

your body actually figured out how to develop a part that was equally as powerful to shut it down

Now let's fast forward 20 years, 40 years. I think we know even theoretically we all get angry at the people we love

That happens. But just like attachment theory teaches us, what happens in our adult relationships

becomes a lot of reactivation of our earliest lessons. So let's say you start to feel angry toward your partner

But then there's this protector part that's talking to you the same way as when you were eight

It doesn't know that it's 2025 or whatever year it is now

It still thinks it's, I don't know, 1980. So it says to you, don't be angry

Do not appreciate your partner. Something's wrong with you. So you shut down anger

You shut down anger because of this protector part that used to protect you

Maybe isn't protecting you anymore, but it thinks it's protecting you. And then we all know what happens

We shut it down, we shut it down. And then there's a moment, oh boy

it comes out with such explosiveness. Not because anything's wrong with us

but because we didn't kind of let out the steam earlier. Now, when I talk about this with people

people say, okay, so we just gotta like get rid of the protector parts, right? Well, we don't

Because from an internal family systems perspective, that part developed for a reason

We actually have to start by thanking that part. Thank you for all the years you kept me safe

You are right. You were doing a really important job. Expressing anger was not safe

And nobody helped me learn to express anger. and nobody gave me a runway as a young kid to know

well, of course, Becky's not gonna express anger well. She's only five

That was not the case. And so you were so crafty for so long

in figuring out some way of shutting anger down. Now I'm here to tell you I'm not five anymore

I'm in a different situation. And I'm gonna ask you for some moments

to kind of step back a little bit so I can practice expressing my anger in healthy ways, even to people I love

And over time, you might get a little worried, but we're kind of going to figure this out together

And that would be kind of an IFS-based intervention, where we're learning to connect to our parts, understand their original function

have compassion, and in doing that, they stop having such hold on us

And so this IFS perspective has really influenced how I think about development, how I help parents, but also some of my favorite interventions to actually teach parents to do with children is IFS-based and inspired

If we can help our kids learn to kind of recognize their parts early, that's one of the most adaptive things that leads to resilience later on

So all the time in adulthood, we are faced with these things that we become curious about

Oh, is that one of the reasons I tend to act this way? Let's talk about attachment

Whenever I feel really upset, even maybe at my partner, I tend to pull away

I tend to pull away. I kind of push them away. If I start to learn, huh, if I do that, at some point in my life, was that adaptive

Might have been adaptive in my earliest years to have learned, when I'm feeling big feelings, your best bet, it's not ideal, but your best bet is to pull away

That is your first moment of like immense power going forward in your adult life

We can't change things before we understand things. Like we always say that at Good Inside

We have to understand before we intervene. And understanding doesn't change things on its own

but it's a necessary first step. So you might reflect, hold on a second. This style that I

even play out with my husband, with my kid, with someone at work. Yeah, there's stuff going on in

the present moment, but also it might be some type of reactivation or early pattern from the past

Then the next step I think is, can I learn about it? The thing that stops us from learning about it

is we feel like there's so much shame. I encourage people to kind of take this realization or

curiosity and almost like put it on a shelf and look at it. Hmm, that's interesting. Hmm, I wonder

what else I could know about that. Hmm. I think I'm going to learn about you. I think I'm going

to take this book. There's so many books about attachment. There's so much we teach at Good

Inside about something called reparenting, about triggers, which is not at all about blaming your

parents. Blaming to me is such a powerless move. That's not what we do. It's actually about

understanding. Why am I the way I am? And why do I do things that I don't want to do, but it just

keeps happening. And if we can learn about that, then we can actually start to talk about it with

someone. I might say to my partner, you know what I've learned about myself? When I'm upset

even though I kind of could really use some support. In the past, before I even knew you

I never really got that support. So one of the things I would do is kind of pull away

Do you ever feel like I do that to you? Maybe like I get really, really snappy and even mean, which is not okay

And then later we realize I'd actually been having this really hard week at work. Your partner might look at you and be like, yeah

Which actually, it can feel hard, but I promise you it can be this beautiful moment of a new type of connection

When you're almost both looking at this thing in the shelf like, yeah, that's kind of true

And I think in the best partnerships, both people are understanding how my earliest attachments influence what I'm bringing today

And you learn about yourself and you learn about each other. Because it's amazing when a partner can start to see, oh, I think she's doing that pulling away thing

It doesn't mean it's my job to make this better. But actually having a little clarity, I might say to my partner in a hard moment, hey, look, the last week has been really hard

I feel like you've been really snippy and let's figure that out. I also know based on our conversations

there might be something hard and vulnerable you're going through. You can talk to me about that

This is not the same as early on. And I know it's going to feel hard because it's new

Why don't you take a moment? Because the snippiness and snapping at me, I know that's not the version of you you want to continue

And I know it's going to be a leap of faith for you to try something new

But I know we're both working on this. I'm going to ask you to do that. Why don't we find a time and you can tell me what's really going on

And this is where our earliest attachments give us information to empower ourselves And in no way do they kind of put us in some type of prison Chapter 3 How to Regulate Your Emotions at Any Age

There are things we can do to improve our emotion regulation skills

Number one is actually just realizing it's a skill. I think parenting is a skill too

That's actually what everything we do at Good Inside is based on. We've been told forever, parenting comes naturally

You should just know what to do. I hear this from parents all the time. I'm struggling with my kid

They're having these tantrums. I'm yelling them all the time. And then they say, yeah, I'm getting tips on Instagram

I read a book here or there. But when you really realize, hold on a second, this is a skill

Any other area of my life that I really care about, I invest in learning skills

I get some professional help. I practice. That's actually so empowering. That's a sign of strength

It's just that parenting has always been told to us. It's something that just comes naturally, which is why we feel shame and we stay alone when we're struggling

That's actually the biggest thing I hope to change. And so, yes, there are so many things we can do to work on our parenting or to work on emotion regulation, which is definitely a part of parenting

Attachment theory and emotion regulation are deeply connected concepts. Kids are born with all of the emotions and none of the skills to manage those emotions

That gap explains why kids and adults act out. It's when emotions are greater than skills

But the thing about these skills that's different than some other skills is they're rarely just taught in a textbook or in a classroom

Kids learn skills to manage their emotions through their attachment with their parents

This brings up the concept of dysregulation and then co-regulation and then the thing we all want, emotion regulation

So let me explain. Because kids are born with all of the emotions and none of the skills, they're often in a state of dysregulation

All that really means is my emotions are greater than my skills. So my emotions come out as a tantrum, as a huge outburst, maybe as an I hate you, as flailing on the floor

That is a state of dysregulation. My kid is having big emotions but doesn't have skills to manage

Okay, what's co-regulation? One of the ways, and the most powerful ways, kids get from dysregulation to regulation is through borrowing a parent's regulation

So let's picture the scene. My kid is melting down. Why? Because I cut their grilled cheese into triangles, not rectangles

Classic meltdown. which is probably just representative of there have been so many things in my day that didn't go the way I imagined

and my bucket of frustration is full, and the triangle grilled cheese is just the thing that spills it all out

My kid is dysregulated on the floor. How kids learn eventually to regulate, even in the face of frustration or disappointment

is that they experience over and over and over and over and over again

to stay relatively calm in the moment the kid was dysregulated. It's almost like here's my

dysregulated kid flailing on the floor. Here's my calm. And it's almost like the calm can transfer

from my body to my kids. And now my kid has this much calm. Not much, but it's growing

You can almost imagine this as, well, when will my kid be able to stay totally calm? A big part

of it is the repetition over and over and over. My parents stayed calm. I've absorbed through

co-regulation enough of that calm regulation that it's in my body and I can access it

See, the scariest thing to a kid is when they get dysregulated and overwhelmed, which is essentially

like the feelings in my body are so scary that they take me over. That's such a helpless state

But imagine your four-year-old in that helpless state. And then they see their parent who they depend on for survival and see

oh no, the things that feel overwhelming to me are also overwhelming to my parent

My parent can't stay calm with this. That's that situation where you're freaking out when there's turbulence

and the pilot's freaking out when there's turbulence. The way you're eventually, even as an adult, going to feel safe amidst turbulence

is actually probably going on flights over and over that have turbulence and absorbing the regulation from the pilot

You start to believe it yourself. And so through a kid's attachment, relationship with a caregiver

they start to see things that overwhelm me might not overwhelm me forever

Things that kind of knock me off my rocker and feel intolerable

actually are tolerable. to my most important, safest adult. And that over and over brings a kid from dysregulation to co-regulation

to that eventual state of emotion regulation. I should say that we never fully live in emotion regulation

All adults still need other adults in time to help co-regulate. That's why when you've had a horrible day and you go out with some friends

and you're having dinner and they say, oh, that stinks. I've been there too

You're like, wait, that's so weird. Nothing about my day changed, but I'm actually feeling better

We absorb some of the validation and calm and maybe someone believes in us in a way

we forgot that we could believe in ourself. We still need co-regulation, even as adults

but hopefully we're not as dependent on it as often as our kids

And I promise you, your kid won't be as an adult. if they've gone through that motion a bunch of times in their early years

Our ability to hold opposing truths at the same time is one of the most important things for our mental health

and successful adult relationships. I'll explain both. Our feelings, our internal states are very complicated

Very rarely do we just feel one thing. For example, in parenthood

you might feel like I love my kid in a way I've never loved anyone in the world

And you might also think I kind of miss my pre-child life. If we're forced to reconcile

those two thoughts as if only one of them can be true, when I have the thought of, oh my goodness

I miss my pre-child life, I start telling myself a story. I'm a horrible person. What kind of

parent would say that? I had to do so much to get pregnant. I'm a monster

or good parents don't think that way. You can imagine the negative downward spiral from there

As if having that thought means I don't love the heck out of my kid. When we can say to ourselves

and this is kind of a good inside catchphrase wait two things are true I love my kid more than I loved anyone or anything in the world And there are moments when I miss my pre life I don have to reconcile those two things

I can just say they're both true. I have a type of internal peace

Now, being able to hold two seemingly oppositional truths is also critical for any successful relationship

Meaning my relationship with my kid, my relationship with my husband, my relationship with my colleague

people see things differently. And when we need someone else to see things the exact way we see

things, we get into really intense conflict in a marriage. Maybe we both want to go to our own

families for the holiday. If I'm only trying to convince my husband, here's why that's a ridiculous

idea. Here's why I should go to my family. I think we all know how that conversation goes

If I can say to myself, hold on a second, I really want to go to my family this year

maybe I can understand why my husband wants to go to his family. Maybe we just need to put on hold which family we're visiting

But maybe I can understand my husband and still understand myself. And maybe that conversation will be a lot more productive

And guess what? It is. This comes into play all the time with parenting too

Setting boundaries is a big part of a parent's job. and newsflash, kids generally have one reaction

to our setting boundaries, a tantrum, especially when they're young. When I say to my kid, even beautifully

oh, I know it's hard to turn off the TV and TV time is over

I'm gonna turn it off now. I've never had a kid say to me, that's a really good decision, mom

Thanks for your sturdy leadership. No, especially when my kids were younger

and they weren't used to boundaries, they would cry, they would tantrum. They would say, you're the worst mom in the world

All my friends watch more TV than I do. If I can't hold two things as true

if only one thing can be true, I start getting very mad at my kid. You're acting ridiculous

You already watched a show. I surveyed all of your friend's parents

and all of them told me they actually watch less TV than you do

Explosion. If I can hold two things are true, I'd say to myself, hold on

My job is to set boundaries. boundaries. My kid's job is actually to kind of feel their feelings so they can learn to deal with

them. I'm allowed to make the decision to turn off the TV. My kid is allowed to be upset about it

My decision doesn't dictate my kid's feelings, and my kid's feelings definitely don't dictate

my decision. I can make a decision. My kid can be upset. Two things are true. Boundaries are one of

the most important things to understand. I think for any relationship, a parenting relationship

a work relationship, partnership, definitely in your relationship with in-laws, you have to

understand boundaries. And there's something I hear all the time, right, in passing. My mother-in-law

doesn't respect my boundaries. My son doesn't respect my boundaries. And whenever I hear this

phrase, someone doesn't respect my boundaries, if I'm honest, what I think is, I don't think this

person has a correct definition of boundaries. So let me share my definition of boundaries

and then we'll go through why it's so important and why boundaries actually help us connect to other people

as opposed to boundaries getting in the way of connection, which is what a lot of us think

Boundaries are what we tell someone we will do and they require the other person to do nothing

So there's like a two-part checklist and I love this. It's very practical. The next time you think you're setting a boundary

you can check in with both parts. Boundaries are something we tell someone we will do

and they require the other person to do nothing. Okay, so I think I set a boundary

Did I tell someone what I will do? And does the success of my boundary

require the other person to do nothing? You have to have two yeses for it to count as a boundary

So when I say to my son, right, and this is a great example

because I live in New York City, I live in an elevator building, and I have a kid who has about 0% people-pleasing in him

right, so he's not inherently people-pleasing. Good for him later on, challenging in childhood, right

And so if I say to my kid, when we get into the elevator, don't press all the elevator buttons

It's very annoying to stop at all the floors or it's disrespectful to other people waiting

And then my son goes in and just presses all the buttons. So many parents would say, my kid doesn't respect my boundaries

Or get off the couch. Hey, stop jumping on the couch. Hey, I'm going to count to five

my kid doesn't get off and I say my kid doesn't respect my boundaries. Okay, in both situations

did I tell my kid what I will do? No. Does the success of my boundary require my kid to do

nothing? No. In both situations, this is so powerful. I am making a request. I'm requesting

for my kid not to press the buttons. I'm requesting for my kid to get off the couch

No, there's nothing wrong with a request. We make requests all the time. And if our kid especially

isn't able to follow a request and we think it's really, really important, we have to set a true

boundary. Now watch for the difference. Hey, when we go into the elevator, I'm going to stand between

you and the buttons. And sweetie, even if you lunge for the buttons, I will stop you. And then if

you're wondering what I would do, yeah, I would get ready. I'd have my like move ready when my kid

lunges, I would just say, I'm not going to let you do that. That's a great boundary. Not we don't

It's like a weird thing we all learn to say to our kid. We don't press buttons. We don't hit

Hopefully your kid knows that. Not we don't. That's really giving away all your authority

Listen to this language. I'm not going to let you do that. And then I'm going to stop my kid

That's a boundary. I'm telling my kid what I will do. And I'm not putting the success of my

intervention in the hands of my four-year-old. And that actually gives you back your power

A true boundary gives you your power. Think about all the times we say

oh, I told my kid to turn off the TV and they didn't do it. They don't respect my boundary

Why am I giving my six-year-old my power? And then in doing that, I actually lose connection

because you know what happens in that TV example or the couch example? My kid doesn't get off the

couch, they don't turn off the TV, and I end up yelling at them, which really diminishes connection

But if I zoom out, I can almost say to myself, why am I setting myself up for this moment

I don't even have the impulse control to turn off the TV. I go to bed later than I want to. How

in any situation is my six-year-old going to watch a TV show and say, you know what

It's a good decision to turn off the TV. It's just not realistic. So what should I do? The next

time we watch TV, I'm going to hold the remote suite. And at the end of your showtime, I'm going

to turn the TV off. My kid will not say thank you, but that is a boundary. And it's more connecting

because I'm setting my kid up for success. And I'm not asking my kid to do my job for me. I'm not

saying, could you do the thing that's hard for me because I don't really want you to have a tantrum

and I don't really want to deal with that. So I'm going to put the power in you. No way. We want to

get our authority back, which is a big thing at Good Inside. I call it authority without aggression

It's a rare form of authority we haven't seen a lot of models of, but it's authority without

aggression I the decision maker I going to set boundaries before I get frustrated I going to set boundaries before you end up doing the bad behavior And that actually going to preserve our relationship Another example of this at work

because it's the same thing. You're always showing up for a 9 a.m. meeting. You're leading this

meeting. And someone's always late. And you're so annoyed. And you say to them, maybe some various

passive aggressive things. It would be nice if we could start on time tomorrow. Right? And then we

think this person doesn't respect me. Please be on time. They didn't come. If you want to set a

true boundary, you can say at the meeting, hey, starting tomorrow at 9 a.m. meetings, I just want

to let you all know I will begin the meeting at 9. I won't end up repeating things. If you end up

being late to the meeting, I know we're all trying our best. Some mornings are like that. You can come

to me after. You can get notes from someone else. I will begin meetings at 9 starting tomorrow. Like

I hope you feel a little pep in your step. You're like, oh, instead of giving my power away to

someone else, I'm actually reclaiming it. And I can do it in a really kind, connecting way

And that's really what leadership, whether in the home or in the workplace, is all about

So when we're flustered, and parents ask me this all the time, what do I do when I'm really

flustered to like calm down? And I think a parent even once said to me, I'm on the edge. I'm about

to scream at my kid. I know it. I don't want to. What do I do in that moment? I often think of this

being the equivalent of someone saying to me, all right, I drove to a cliff. My car is on the edge

of the cliff. How do I not fall off the cliff? And what I would say to that person is, why are you

driving to a cliff? Like, I mean it. We're asking the wrong question. The best question is, how can

I recognize that I'm on a road that always ends on a cliff and try to like exit that road before I

get to the cliff. When you're on the cliff, how do you not fall off the cliff? I really mean this

Nobody has a great answer to that. I don't. I mean, sure, I guess there's one or two things we

could do, but our ability to do something productive when we're teetering on the edge

it's selling ourselves short. It's kind of like not setting our kid up for success

We're not setting ourself up for success. So often, I think we're asking kind of the wrong

questions, which is actually why we're stuck. And it's so empowering to know if you feel stuck

with a question, how do I not tip off the edge? It's so empowering to say to yourself, wait

maybe it's not that I don't know the answer to this question. Maybe I just need to ask a different question. And the question here is how do I start recognizing that I'm getting overwhelmed

How do I start recognizing what's happening in my nervous system before I'm at a 10 out of 10

How do I recognize I'm getting overstimulated so I can kind of empty some of that sensory bucket

before I get to the point that I'm full, at which point anybody would explode. And I love this

question because it's much more hopeful. Number one is we have to realize anger is a healthy

emotion. I don't just mean a normal emotion. It's a healthy emotion. Anger tells us what we want

and what we need. I actually wouldn't wish the removal of anger on anyone. If we want to preserve

of any sense of self-esteem and self-worth, we have to have access to anger

Can you imagine someone saying, I'm never angry? That's really a way of saying, I never know what I want

I never know what I need. That's actually a really, really sad state of being

Actually having access to anger means you still have access to self-worth

the belief that you do kind of deserve to want and need things

Now, why is anger so hard to manage? It goes back to attachment and internal family systems

and our earliest years. anger is one of the hardest emotions to develop skills for because it's so powerful

But the issue was in anger itself. The issue was most of us weren't taught skills to effectively

manage anger and we weren't given a long enough kind of runway to learn how to do that. Instead

we were like sent to our rooms, which ironically only makes us more angry without having skills

Pretty counterproductive. In adulthood, a big part of reparenting, and this is some of my favorite

work to do with parents, can do maybe a little preview of it here, is to start to reclaim access

to healthy anger. Here's an example, and most people wouldn't think about it as anger. Okay

I'm really overwhelmed at bath time, let's say. Let's say I'm a stay-at-home parent or I'm home

earlier and my partner works. Every night I think, wish I had more help, wish I had more help

right? You feel a little angry. If you're able to recognize anger, high anger, well

That makes sense. Anger tells me what I want and need. What do I want? I want some help

I need some support. Okay, I'm allowing myself to feel anger. And maybe then, because I've done that process, I'm able to

and this takes practice and skills, which I love to teach parents, speak directly

Not this. This is what we do too often. It would be nice if you were home for a bath time at some point

No. Hey, I feel overwhelmed around doing bath time by myself. and I really, really need more support

Can you let me know two nights this week that you can be home by 5.25 PM

I really mean it. I start with a feeling, I name a need and I'm specific

I always just have this little acronym, feeling, need, specific. The specificity matters because so often

especially in parenting, when you're the holder of information, you say bath time, the person who's less involved

for whatever reason might have no idea what you mean. They're like, I came home at seven. Oh, I didn't know that bath time was at 5.30

and this is hard for a lot of us because we have been so conditioned

to try to get as far away from anger as possible that we don't communicate directly

We kind of dance around it and we do something extremely powerless. We hope someone else recognizes our need before we do

Like we're almost crossing our fingers. I hope my partner knows I need help. At 525, we do something I call, we hint and hope

Well, I'm just gonna drop a hint and I'm gonna hope. So disempowering. So amazing to realize, wait

Anger is healthy. It's telling me what I need. What do I need? Can I listen to it? Can I name

a feeling? Right? I probably need help. That's what my anger is telling me, right? With bath time

And the minimum is two nights a week at 525. Now what I'm doing, and I always talk about this with

parents, kind of if I think about a road to rage, which is what we mean when we fall off the cliff

is instead of waiting till I'm almost at the cliff, I'm exiting. I'm literally taking an exit

Another example might be, oh, I'm so touched out. I can't even deal with my kids anywhere near me

Wait, maybe that's an anger signal in a way. What do I need

I need some time alone. Huh, whenever I tell my kids I'm gonna go for a walk

maybe my partner's home or I have some help or they're old enough to stay home alone and they say, wait, I wanna go with you

Now I realize, no, sweetie. I really love being your parent and being with you

I wanna be very direct. I also really need time to myself. That's really important

So it's okay if you're upset. I'm going to take this walk for the next 20 minutes totally by myself. That's something I need

That is another kind of exit on that road and ironically comes from your ability to recognize anger

You're feeling a little angry at your kids, resentful, and you can actually use that information to exit that road again before we're on the cliff

I actually think the simplest thing you can do is adopt this AVP practice

AVP is a basic foundational emotion regulation skill. And just to go through those steps

it's acknowledge, validate, permit. I'm not gonna be able to regulate my feelings of

of anxiety or jealousy if I'm not able to say, I think I'm feeling anxious

Oh, there's that jealous feeling. I always think of acknowledgement as saying hi to something

And I find this really, really useful because as soon as I can say hi to jealousy

the jealousy is a part of me and not all of me, okay

So as soon as I can say, whoa, hi, jealous feeling about my friend getting a promotion

when I'm kind of struggling at work, Now, instead of jealousy kind of being in the driver's seat of my car, it just feels like it's

taken over. That's when we make really bad decisions. I'm in the driver's seat of my car

I'm kind of like waving to jealousy in the backseat. It's kind of like an annoying

pesky passenger, but I'm acknowledging it. And then I think we have validation

Validation is telling yourself why your feeling makes sense. That doesn't have anything to do

with saying your behavior about the feeling makes sense. It might make perfect sense that you're feeling jealous

That doesn't mean you should send a nasty text message to your friends about your friend who got the good job promotion

Not okay. But you have to be able to say to yourself, oh, well, I've been really working hard at work

and I haven't gotten the promotion I thought I was gonna get, so it makes sense that I'm jealous

Validation does not mean I agree with how you feel. When I say to my kid

oh, I get it. You wish you could stay up later. No part of me thinks it's a good idea for them to

stay up later. They have a bedtime because I think it's the right bedtime. But validation is so

important because it's kind of saying to someone else, I see your emotions as real for you

which is really no skin off my back. I'm not saying it's real for me. I'm not even saying

I would feel like that if I were in your position. It's interesting. The only reason we can't validate

someone else is because we are in a one thing is true mentality. We are only thinking, well

I don't feel that way. Well, I wouldn't feel that way. Well, I didn't feel that way when I was that

age. That could all be true. But we have to hold two things are true. I don't feel that way. I

wouldn't have felt that way. My child is feeling that way. At our core as humans, we are all just

looking to feel believed. And the reason that's so important is because our feelings are both so

powerful and completely invisible. See, when a kid falls and skins their knee and is bleeding

and they're crying in pain, there's something very useful about seeing the blood or the cut

They're like, I thought that was painful. Oh, look at that. It's real. Blood. I'm right

But feelings are so confusing because every adult knows when you feel something intensely

it is just such a powerful sensation in your body. But there's no blood to prove it

There's no blood test. There's nothing external that is a sign that what you're feeling is real

and so as humans when someone sees an invisible feeling that's taking over our body as real

it's like the ultimate sigh of relief it's like I'm not so crazy after all this thing that I feel

is real yeah this is a real thing now the reason validation also is something we want to do for our

kids knowing that it doesn't mean we agree is our kids can't learn to manage a feeling in their body

if they don't get the message that the feeling is real. That's a precondition

So people say to me, but I don't want my kid to think it's just okay to freak out like this about going to bed

so I'm not gonna validate the feeling. I said, whoa, let's take the long game here

Ironically, if you want your kid when they're older to not freak out about going to bed

you actually do wanna validate their feelings. That's step one. It's hard not to make your own decision

Oh, it stinks to have someone else pick your bedtime. Even just you're really upset that you have to go to bed right now

I believe you. Now, the same thing is true for self-regulation in adulthood

Validating your own feelings doesn't mean this feeling is going to be true forever

It doesn't mean this feeling means you have to act in a certain way

It's just kind of a way of saying to the sensations in your body

you're real. I believe you. And I promise you what that does to kind of cool down the intensity

is remarkable. You can almost think about your feelings like this annoying friend who's just

trying to get your attention. And you're like, stop it. Stop it. Go away. I wish this friend

wasn't at this party. You just kind of have to look at the friend sometimes and say, hi, I see you

you're real. And then that friend will like simmer down a little bit and won't be as pesky

So big picture, validation doesn't mean agreeing. Validation doesn't mean I feel the same way

Validation is just a way of saying a feeling is real for that person. And when you think about it

that way, it might be a lot easier to start doing. The next thing that I think is missing

is what I call permission, which is just giving yourself permission to have the feeling

it's actually remarkable. Sometimes I think our feelings would be saying to us

please just allow us to be there. Please just allow us to live in your body. We're not looking

for much more. As soon as I can say to myself, I allow myself to feel jealous. I permit this

jealous feeling. It also doesn't have as much of a hold on us. So I'm asked a lot, all this

validation of my kids' feelings, am I just coddling them? And I love this question because

I really, really want to differentiate the two. Coddling is a real thing. Let me be clear. There

are a lot of parents, I see it too, where there's coddling. And what that really means is you are

limiting your kid's capability. Good inside is all about helping your kid access and bring out

their capability. I believe that's the best thing for kids. That's what resilience is

And validation of whatever your kid is feeling is a part of helping your kid be capable

but it's not the whole thing. I think about two things that are really important components

of helping a kid become more capable. And the first one is kind of that I believe you. And we

hear other people talk about this. So let's say a kid is on a soccer team, but they're no longer

starting. And they found that out. They don't want to go to practice tomorrow. To me, the first I

believe you, the validation would sound something like this. Look, I get it. I would probably feel

the same way. Like I just kind of want to stay in my room. I can't believe I lost my starting spot

That stinks. If I say that to my kid and then I say, I guess you don't have to go

Yeah. I think that's really limiting to a kid. Really limiting. It's not just coddling. I just

think it's a very sad thing that when a kid feels that they're not capable of something because of

their emotions, we collude in that not-so-capable version of themselves. I think that ends up being a horrible feeling to a kid

Oh I didn think I was capable of doing something hard and no one else really believed in me either Now the opposite of coddling I guess would be something like you making a big deal out of

nothing. Go to practice. This is absurd. It's interesting. I don't think that helps bring out

a kid's resilience either. Now, all of a sudden, my kid really doesn't want to go to practice because it's just a way to defy me, so that's counterproductive. My kid's going to feel let

down at a million points in their life when they're older, and if they can't do that first step of

acknowledging and validating and permitting their feelings, they're not going to be able to recover

from it. And just judging yourself for your feelings makes them harder to deal with

So what's that middle ground? What's that resilience building ground? We have this I

believe you. But the second part, and I do think this is missing sometimes, but let me tell you

it is core to what we do at Good Inside. We never forget it. I believe you and I believe in you

It's actually really easy to remember that. I believe you and I believe in you. You want to

raise a resilient kid, especially in the face of some nervous or anxious feelings, you need both

parts, okay? And in a way, I picture my kid's kind of in a hole almost, not like an abyss, but let's

say it's like a little hole. Like, I can't do this. No, I kind of need one foot in the hole with them

Like, that's the part that's validating. I believe you. I'm with you. But this is important. You need

one foot out of the hole. I always think about it one foot in validation, one foot in capability

and hope. So what would that sound like? We started, look, I get it. I'd feel the same way

Honestly, not having a starting spot anymore, that's really hard. And I too would probably

just want to curl up in my bed and not go to practice. And you're a kid who can do hard things

I want you to hear that from me. You are. And showing up to practice really uncomfortable and

a little bit embarrassed, I'm not going to tell you you can work your way out of that. It is going

to be a really, really hard practice. And you're actually going to get more out of going through

that than you probably would if you were just having the starting position for the rest of

high school. I want to be honest. And I really know you can do this. That's not coddling. Now

parents get very specific. So do you make them go to practice? There's so many dynamics in a family

No parent is usually that successful making their like 16-year-old do anything. But this also has

to do with the way you've related to them until that point and whether you kind of have enough of

what I call connection capital built up with them for that intervention to really be helpful

I'll give you another example, right? Your kid isn't in class with anyone they're friends with

You have to call the school. You have to switch me so I'm with Molly and Priya, whatever their

friends' names are. Look, sweetie, I remember when I was your age and I found out I wasn't in first

grade with my best friends. That stinks. That doesn't just stink like this or this. It's like

big time. And you're a kid who's going to get through this. I'm not going to call the school

Sometimes we don't get our friends in our class. And actually, you're going to feel more confident

at the end of this year having gotten through that, probably having made some new friends

But either way, just seeing that you can get through disappointment. So I'm not going to call

the school. I'm not going to switch your class. But I will remind you every day how capable you are

and I'll also understand that you're sad and we're going to get through this together. That is resilience building

Because when you get older and something's really hard, you have to do that first step

This stinks. I got fired from my job. And then if you also hear that second voice

and I'm going to get through this. I feel overwhelmed with kind of sadness and shame

But I also know there's some other version of me who's going to get to the other side

I can't even really see her right now, but I know she's there. that combination of those two, chef's kiss, that's resilience. I think a lot about how screens

both our relationship with screens as parents and our kids' relationships with screens

are affecting emotion regulation. I think the core thing I think about is our relationship

with frustration is dramatically changing so quickly because of the ease and frankly

the quick dopamine hits that screens give us all the time. So let's start with children

but then I'll talk about parents because I think that's the part that's often left out of the conversation. Our kids, because of technology, there's just a lot more ease built into their

everyday life. Whether it's I just get to sit on an iPad and basically go like this

bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, basically nothing, effortless, and dopamine and enjoyment and

excitement and reward just come to me. It's kind of the opposite of all the circuitry we would want

kids to build in terms of what will be adaptive later on. Like even think about your kid at five

learning to read or in their first job taking on a hard project. You want them to have a circuit

that kind of says, I have to put in a lot of effort and a lot of work. By the way, a lot of time

a lot of struggle, a lot of intentionality, and then one day in the future, I will have a reward

Reward comes later after a lot of hard work is basically the opposite of I do basically no hard

work and get reward right away. So it makes sense that our kids have less what I call frustration

tolerance. There is less tolerance for frustration, which is essentially the space between wanting and

having because the space between wanting and having for children and technology has been

collapsed. I often think even just about watching a movie. I was fortunate to grow up in a family

where we had a Blockbuster membership. Okay. So I think about, oh, I really want to watch a movie

Okay. Let me go talk to my parents and see when they can take me to Blockbuster. Okay. Maybe that's a day or two. Now let's go on the drive to Blockbuster. This is already 48 hours

where I'm like, oh, I really want to watch this movie. I really want to watch True Beverly Hills

whatever it is, we finally get to Blockbuster. I go and you're winding through the aisles

and then you see the image. And sometimes, as most of us remember

is you look behind and you're like, oh man, they're out. They don't even have that movie

Or maybe they do, but it took such a long time between wanting and imagining and having

If we think about the time a child right now has between wanting to watch a show and having a show

So it's essentially no time. It's almost like magic. Like if I want something, it magically appears in front of me in that moment

And I think too often we're not thinking about how does this show up in school? How does this show up in a kid's ability to learn to read

Now, there's definitely learning dynamics around reading, right? There's phonics. Certainly some kids are dyslexic or have attention struggles

But for a lot of kids who struggle, it's one of the first things around age five that they actually have to wait and work and not succeed at right away

And you know what? With reading, nobody is just delivering to you right away the ability to read

And so that circuit in a kid's body, work, try, stick with it, don't get it, keep trying, hear that voice that says, I can't do it

Take a deep breath. Take a break. Come back. Keep going. And the best it gets is I don know you can read a part of a word but not even the whole word at the end of that lesson If that circuit has not been developed in other parts of a kid life by the time they learn to read it no wonder the kid looks like they essentially having a meltdown

and can't attend to it, because it is a totally new task and completely at odds with all the

reward circuitry they've come to expect in their five-year-old life. Okay, now the part that I think we often neglect and is so important is what our relationship with screens in adulthood has done in terms of the dynamics around parenting

So we kind of know our kids are less tolerant of frustration, which actually does mean they probably do have more bad behavior because their expectations are so different than ours were

But now in adulthood, I know, and I can just speak for myself, I'm on my phone a lot

I've gotten used to this world where I don't have to go to Blockbuster. I want to watch a movie

I'm going to watch that movie. I even think about an ingredient I might want to have for tonight's meal

I can go bing, bing, bing, and the thing is delivered to my house. So much more ease

So much more immediate gratification. So much more dopamine. So much less frustration

So much convenience and so much less inconvenience in our adult life

I think one of the most important things to know about raising young kids is actually that it's massively inconvenient when it's done well

Your kid will have a tantrum when you go to the grocery store. And you're like, well, I guess I'm not getting groceries

I'm going to have to pick my kid up and carry them out. You're a good kid having a hard time. Whatever I say, put them in the car, work through it

So inconvenient. I'm home for 10 minutes after work and my kid is screaming

I get it. Inconvenient. If you think about what phones have done to our tolerance of the day-to-day inconveniences

of parenting, it's dramatic. I think one of the reasons we can get into this bad cycle, our kids are less tolerant

of frustration, in part because of technology and their expectations of too much immediate

gratification, more bad behavior. We are less tolerant of our kids' bad behavior because of our relationship with our screens

Which means instead of tolerating it, oh, we're gonna work through this together

where it's like, fine, take an iPad. Fine, have the ice cream. Fine, let me change my rule

I just wanna make this go away. And we're in this horrible cycle

We're less tolerant, they're less tolerant, more bad behavior, more shutting down and avoidance

more bad behavior, off in a bad direction. And it's one of the reasons why helping adults and kids

increase what I call frustration tolerance. Like my work around frustration tolerance

it's hand in hand with resilience. There is nothing more important in this day and age

than teaching your kid frustration tolerance, which also means, eesh, we have to increase our own frustration tolerance

to help our kids do the same. When we think about our kid bad behavior, like my kid doesn't wait, they interrupt me all the time

Well, our kids have less waiting built into their lives. They do, they're not waiting for a movie

They're watching five minutes of a movie, maybe just a show, and they're like, nope, don't like this, next, next, next, next, next

And so we actually have to make sure with our kids, like I've actually said to my kid

I'm gonna teach you waiting. It's a thing. It's a thing. It's still real

I'm gonna make sure we learn it. And it is one of these reasons on the margin. I live in Manhattan and I might think

oh, I'm gonna jump in a cab. You know what? I'm gonna carve out more time

and I'm gonna go wait for the bus. Not just because it saves money, which I like, but because my kid actually needs more moments

than I did based on my childhood to wait, to literally learn how to wait and practice doing that

Chapter four, rupture, repair, and deeply feeling kids. Rupture is a moment in a relationship

when there's a disconnection, when trust is broken, when something felt scary

but really when two people who are in a close relationship have disconnection

rupture between a parent and a kid. Kid look like you as a parent yell at your kid. You snap. You

say you're a spoiled brat. You use a scary tone. Why don't you ever listen to me? That's the rupture

moment. I think we all know them and we all have them. That's really important. No parent is perfect

and avoids rupture. Rupture is part of every even loving relationship. Repair is when you reconnect

following a rupture. And that often involves taking responsibility for your part

acknowledging what it might have been like for the other person, and talking about what you want

to do differently the next time. Now, I think it's powerful to think about the difference between a

repair and kind of just an apology. So many times an apology doesn't feel good to you because it

actually looks to shut a conversation down. Something like this. I'm sorry I yelled, okay

I'm sorry I yelled, we're all right. I'm sorry I yelled, you forgive me, right? It's either something I'm looking to get from someone

we're okay, right? Or it's a quick conversation ender. I'm sorry, can we move on

That doesn't help someone and it doesn't reconnect. A good repair actually opens up a conversation

So the steps might be, I name what happened, I take responsibility

Maybe I acknowledge what it might have been like for someone and I talk about what I might do differently the next time

Sounds like a lot of steps, but it can be really short. Hey, I yelled at you earlier in the kitchen

I'm really sorry. I was feeling really frustrated and that came out as a yell

And I'm sure that felt scary to you. I'm going to work on staying calmer even when I'm frustrated

You can also shorten that. Just something simple like, I'm sorry I yelled at you earlier in the kitchen

That wasn't okay. What I'm doing there is I'm going back to that moment of rupture and I'm taking responsibility

for my part. I'm also, in the nature of how I'm communicating, not just looking to move on

I might even add, after, if you want to talk to me about it, I'm open

If you want to tell me how that felt for you, you can. If there's some way that we could have handled it differently, I'm open to hearing that

and what I'm really doing then is instead of that rupture moment being this disconnection

I know that happened. I'm not perfect. I'm a human, not a robot, but what I can control

is the after. I can go back and offer a very different experience that kind of surrounds

the rupture moment and that actually really changes the way even the original rupture

gets remembered in our relationship. We know that memory is not only remembering the original event

but remembering every other time you've remembered that event. So if you think about the event as

I don't know, a circle or a pebble in between, yes, that starts out of memory. But whether I then

say, even with a hard memory. And then I talked about it with my mom. And then I had a guidance

counselor at school who helped me understand it in a new way. Now, all of a sudden, I have these

layers around that pebble. And the memory, the next time I talk about it, isn't simply the thing

in the center It all of the other things around it which speaks to the immense power of repair and why I do think about repair as being similar to being a parent magician So here what I mean I yelled at my kids I still yell at my

kids. I think that's so important. I say always, I never want to be on a pedestal, okay? My kids

don't have Dr. Becky as a mom. They have Becky and I'm doing my best. And I try to yell less and

I try to repair a lot more. I think that's as good as it gets for everyone. So let's say there's a

moment. And I talked about this in my repair TED talk. This happened where it was one of those

days, really stressful day. And my son complained about dinner. It was something like chicken again

disgusting. And I had labor over cooking dinner and I wasn't terribly happy with it either

but it was just the accumulation of too much. And I yelled, I think I called him a spoiled brat or

you don't appreciate me. My tone was scary. And in that moment, if I'm honest, kind of mom, the mom

I love and need my sturdy leader became scary mom. And so he ended up in his room and I'm in the

kitchen. And at first, yes, the spiral starts. I'm a horrible parent, right? Because I've collapsed

my own behavior and my identity. I've taken this moment and I've judged myself. I was able to ground

myself. And I think the real secret about repair is you have to repair with yourself first

I'm a good parent who was having a hard time. That moment didn't define me over and over

Then I ended up going to my kid. But before I tell you what I said, I want to talk about why repair changes memory

This event already happened. My kid has this memory of this moment

My mom yelled at me when I had a kind of mild complaint about dinner. Okay. But if I know memory is not just the event, it's every other time I remembered the event

What that means is when I go repair, Hey, I just screamed at you in the kitchen

That wasn't okay. I'm sure that felt scary, and I'm really sorry

My son's memory will forever change. Now there's not just this, oh my goodness, I got yelled at

There's, I got yelled at, and wow, my mom came and took responsibility for what she did

and sat with me on my bed, and I wasn't alone, and we reconnected

When you repair with your kid, and it doesn't just have to be in the moment, Sometimes the magic of it I think happens almost when we repair for something longer ago

People say, is it too late to repair? No. You can always say to your kid, even something general, there were a lot of times when you

were younger, when you were having a hard time, I just sent you to your room and took

away things you liked. And I'm just thinking I've learned something new recently and I look back on that and I

am sure that felt really bad and unfair to you. And I understand that. And I'm sorry. And I want

to do things a little differently. I'm not going to be perfect, but I want to do things differently from now on. Now, to be clear, very few kids get that and say, that was a really meaningful

relational experience. Dad, thank you. That has never happened. Okay. Your kid might look like

what? Okay. Can I have pretzels? That doesn't mean it doesn't matter. You actually are changing your

kid's memory because the memory of what happened, even if they're not thinking about it all the time

up here, it already is stored in their body. We can't change that and that's okay, but we can layer

on top of it. And too many times we focus so much on the event instead of the power we have after

the event. Oh, yelling messed up my kid. Now, I don't like the term messed up my kid. It's too

final. But if I use that language, I'd say to a parent, yelling's not messing up your kid

Not repairing after yelling, that's what's messing up your kid. But that's good news

because you can still repair. So let's learn that skill and start to do it

One of the things that was happening in my private practice as I was developing these ideas is I was

seeing so many parents for parenting work. And there were a subset of parents who were telling

me, my kid has these huge tantrums. Dr. Becky, it's not what you've ever seen before. Animalistic

hissing, growling, scratching me. I've seen other kids, they don't have tantrums like this

and my kid takes longer to calm down and they blame me for things I never did

Why did you trip me? And I'm thinking, you just tripped on the sidewalk. Like, sorry if you're embarrassed

but I wasn't even touching you, all these things. And then they'd say to me this, and I'm doing the things you told me to do

but your strategies are making things worse. Okay. I'm ashamed to say this

but I feel like leading with the truth is important. my first thought in these sessions was often, I just don't think you're doing it right. Like

I don't know if you're doing it the way I would do it, but like, okay, I love a problem and I love

to be creative. And so how about we try this or how about we try this? And then we started to make

a lot of progress and I didn't quite understand exactly why, but started to catch on with this

kind of subset of like very, very intense emotional kids who would kind of push parents away in the

moment they kind of needed parents the most, this kind of unproductive dance. Then I had my second

kid. I was like, oh, oh, okay. I understand all of these parents because I know I'm saying things

and doing things the exact same way I was at my first. But when I validate my kid's feelings

oh, you're so sad. This is what I get in response. Stop talking to me. And a part of me is like

wait, this is supposed to help. This helped other kid. And then I would see these animalistic

meltdowns. It's kind of the only way. Like the zero to 60, it was so intense and the calming down

would take so much longer. And I just remember thinking, oh my goodness, I have to call all

these parents and say, okay, I am so with you. And so I had this kid in my house and then I was

seeing so many of these families. Because I think once I started to develop this other approach and

we had all this success, like all these referrals came in. And I really saw that there's this group

of kids, I call them deeply failing kids, who really are kind of operating differently in the

world. And I think the core thing I realized about them is these are kids who are more porous to the

world. And if you think about what that means, if you think about the pores on your skin and each

one being bigger, that would profoundly impact your experience in the world. More would actually

come in from your environment, which means you would get overwhelmed more easily or more quickly

right? And also in the moments when it all came out, because you were more porous

more would come out. It would be almost violent and intense and their tantrums and meltdowns and

protests really are more intense and parents need to know you're not making it up. The other thing

I realized about these kids is unlike non-DFKs, when non-deeply feeling kids are vulnerable

they trip and fall. They feel sad because you're leaving and someone else has to put them

to bed. They really take in comfort. They don't get calm right away, but they want to be comforted

Deeply feeling kids, and this is so important, when they feel vulnerable, they simultaneously

feel shame. And shame makes feelings explosive, which is why when deeply feeling kids trip or

mispronounce a word, or even when they internally just feel like, I'm going to miss my dad when

he's on a business trip, because they feel things so intensely. And they're so acutely aware of their intense emotions

they start to think, I'm a really intensely feeling person and I get overwhelmed so easily

and I so need the adults around me, but the things that overwhelm me

I'm worried are gonna overwhelm them. And so I can't really ask them for help

because then I'm gonna kind of lose the very person that I need. And you can imagine this is such a conflictual existence

And if people are thinking, you think that's what's happening for my three-year-old? 100%

it. And so when they miss you, when they're embarrassed, they explode with anger and kind

of push people away. These are the kids when they're having these massive tantrums and they are so out of control. They go, get out of my room. But you're kind of thinking like, really

Like you're not really in a good place to make that decision. And then sometimes we take the

bait and we leave and we say, fine, I'm just trying to help. And as soon as we close the door

Essentially what a DFK thinks is, see, I knew it. I really am as bad and overwhelming to others and toxic and too much as I worried I was

And they're off to the races in a bad way. I have come to be obsessed with these kids

I think they are the most misunderstood kids. And unfortunately, I have to say, even in the clinical world, too often these kids are labeled as oppositional, defiant

And parents are told every parent who ever has done our whole Deeply Feeling Kid program tells me, yeah, I've always told you're not being harsh enough

You're not being consistent enough with timeouts. All that does, especially for DFKs, is confirm their biggest fear

I am too much, too bad for others. And only makes them even more vulnerable to all the bad behavior we're looking to shift away from

Now, this doesn't mean those kids need a party when they're exploding

No. But I've developed this way of understanding those kids. And it's something I call a side door strategy

See, when typical kids, not typical, but when non-deeply feeling kids are upset

you kind of picture them in their house. And you can kind of go up to their front door. And you're like, hey, I'm here to support you

And they kind of respond like, sure, come on in. Hey, it was so hard when your brother said you couldn't play with him and his friend, right

and a little bit, a non-deeply feeling kid will go, right? And you kind of know you have that moment

You say that to a deeply feeling kid and they do, they slam the door in your face

Get out of my room. Stop talking about feelings. But we misconstrue that as them not wanting our support

It's just too direct. It's like almost too close. And so I've developed this way of understanding

we have to go around to the side. And what are you going around? You have to go around their shame

which is actually their fear that all their big feelings will lead to disconnection

So just as one example of that, it might sound like this. Look, I'm going to say something and I don't know if it's true

It probably won't be. But if I say something and you agree with it, give me a thumbs up

If you kind of agree but kind of think it's wrong, give me a thumb to the side. And if I say something that totally wrong give me a thumbs down Now pro tip when you do this for a DFK and you know you have a DFK when this hits first say something that they going to reject Why Deeply feeling kids based on their fears they need to titrate close this

They kind of need to push you away a little before they take you in

So you might say first, I think you were upset earlier because I promised you I would take you to the moon

and the space shuttle just wasn't ready. Maybe I'd say that to a kid who loves space

and my kid's going to go like this from their bed. Oh, no

And inside you'll think, oh, I'm so winning. Because then you can say something like this

This is an exact example that a family shared with me. They did this, and the second thing they said was

I think it's really hard when you're playing with your brother and his friend, and you're included

and then all of a sudden they want some alone time. And this family told me the kid gave a thumb to the side

For a DFK is like as good as it gets in the beginning. And the parent told me I was just so happy

It was like the first connection we'd had in a while. And I just kind of didn't say anything

I was like frozen in shock. And the kid goes, ask me another question

Deeply feeling kids get so overwhelmed and struggle to understand themselves. And truly one of the worst things for a kid is to be un-understandable

And too often for DFKs, because we think we have to lead with harshness or be more consistent with punishments, they actually get worse and worse because they feel so un-understandable

It's the worst feeling for a kid. Nobody understands me. It's almost like, am I even real

Who am I? All kids need to feel understood. I think it's harder with deeply feeling kids because traditional methods of trying to understand your kid, they do reject

And then we can take that very personally. We feel like, hey, I'm trying my hardest and you're stopping me from feeling like a good parent

But what's important to know is after kids act out, after that hitting and that animalistic tantrum

or after your kid says something awful to you and they're alone in their room

it's just so important to imagine that that kid is actually so overwhelmed and frightened because they're alone

Now, that doesn't mean we should run to our kid right away. We might need to regulate ourself first

and connection can mean a lot of things, but finding a way to be close to your kid again

to even remember in your head, wait, I don't have a bad kid. I have a good kid who is having a hard time

Finding your kid later and saying, look, I know we all have moments when we do things we're not proud of

I love you. Nothing you could ever do would change that I love you

That is so, so important. And so that moment, and there's so many other ways

you can kind of go around the shame. The dynamic with these kids completely change

and they become much more able to manage their emotions. And actually, they get to tap into all

the amazing parts about being a DFK. They are these intensely feeling people, which when you

get around the bad behavior and the shame, you see their intense joy, and they're so funny

and they leaders and they so self And so deeply feeling kids are kind of my passion project within the passion project that is good inside And I just excited for more people to think about their kids or maybe even themselves in that framework

Chapter five, four habits that build emotional strength. I think about four daily habits that really, really compound in a beautiful way over time in terms of parenting your kid

And I'm going to go over all four. You don't have to do all four every day, but it kind of gives you a little menu

Number one is taking care of yourself. That is a really important part of being a sturdy leader

If you think about the sturdiest pilot, they would never say, I love piloting my passengers so much that I have piloted for 30 straight days

and I haven't even had a moment to myself. I'm sorry, I'm getting off that plane

I am not letting that pilot fly me. In fact, there are laws to mandate that pilots get rest

As parents, we have to think about that ourselves. Self-care is not selfish

Self-care is self-sustaining. And kids don't need martyrs. They need sturdy leaders

And that means parents have to take care of themselves. So the practice of taking care of yourself should be a daily habit

and that doesn't mean, oh, I'm going to Paris for six months

I'm taking care of myself. I mean, if that's something that you're able to do and it works for the family

for most of us, what that means is, I'm gonna sit down and drink my coffee while it's hot

I'm gonna make my own breakfast. I'm gonna have some water. I'm gonna carve out time where I'm still

instead of running around all the time. I'm gonna go to bed early. I'm gonna work out

I'm gonna see a friend. That's an important daily habit. Number two, connecting with your kid

The thing that really compounds over time with your kid is connection. I love strategies and scripts and little hacks here and there

But the truth is the only strategy you really have with your kid when they get older is connection

And this is one of my biggest issues also with timeouts and sticker charts. I've seen too many families where there's a 16-year-old who stops going to school

They're like, you can't make me. Or they're doing really, really dangerous things

And they never quite say this, but they kind of do through their behavior

I'm too big to put in a timeout. And I don't give a fill in the blank about stickers

And you have spent 16 years not connecting to me or getting to know me

and there's really nothing between us. And that's terrifying. The only thing that makes a 16-year-old listen to your rule about a curfew

or tell you about something pretty messy that they need help with at school or with friends

is that they feel connected with you. And it's never too late to build connection, but connection compounds

The work we put in when our kids are younger to talk to them about hard things

to understand that they upset about something that wouldn upset us that compounds in a massive way when our kids are older and connection is really the only thing between us Number three is seeing hard feelings as something we want to help our kids

sit with, not fix. Feelings are not for fixing. And if we want to have kids that are really resilient

and not fragile and not entitled, we have to make sure our kids are learning how to

sit with hard feelings rather than looking to us as the fixer or the exiter of hard feelings

Oh, I didn't make the soccer team. Now, sure, maybe there's a time to think, is there a soccer

team in another town, but not first. Oh, that stinks. Sit with disappointment rather than an

immediate exit. I'm the only one in my class who can't read. I'm so glad you're telling me about

that. Tell me more. What happened in class today? Rather than, that can't be true. Well, at least

you're good at chess, whatever we say, to lift our kids out of the feelings. Becoming resilient by

the time you're an adult compounds from seeing that you can cope with hard feelings and hard

situations, not entirely avoid them. And the fourth habit is repair. I actually tell parents

all the time, if you're going to get really good, really good at something in parenting

get really good at repair. If you back into that, it's almost overt permission to mess up because

you actually can't repair if there's not a rupture. So the only way to get good at repair

is to have a moment that you didn't feel good about. And so I hope you can use that with levity

Like, wait, I'm trying to get good at repair. Step one is maybe yelling at my kid, okay, check, I did the first step

You know, and they always say the first step is the hardest step, so I guess I'm just well on my way. And now I get to practice repair

I'm doing the daily habit of repair. Repair matters so much. So self-care, connection, helping kids tolerate hard feelings, not exit from them, and repair

Those are the four habits that really, really compound over time. Taking a hard moment and kind of forming the sentence, I'm a good person who is life-changing

I'm a good person who yelled at my kid. I'm a good person who's been late to work a lot

I'm a good person who struggles to be honest about my feelings in relationships

So often, our hardest moments come because we just judge ourself. Again, we collapse behavior and identity

and a quick little cheat to separate identity and behavior is actually just to have the sentence starter

I'm a good person who, that establishes to yourself, right, I'm good inside

And that in of itself is kind of healing. And then you can name the behavior

that you want to get curious about, that you want to build skills around. And I promise you that sentence structure

sets you up for so much more positive change as opposed to this always self-critical

self-blaming, negative to self-cycle a lot of us can tend to be in