How to Tackle Bad Behaviour (with Dr Becky Kennedy)

Clinical psychologist Dr Becky Kennedy https://www.goodinside.com/ thinks every child is “good inside” even when they’re behaving badly. So to tackle tantrums or rule-breaking, she argues that parents must set clear boundaries for acceptable behaviour, but also seek to understand why their children are misbehaving. If a child is acting "badly" because they are disappointed, sad, frustrated, jealous, or uncomfortable, then a parent's job is to help their kid deal with those feelings and build up more resilience to common emotions that they'll experience throughout life. Hear more of Dr Becky's parenting tips on her podcast Good Inside With Dr Becky https://www.goodinside.com/podcast/ This series on parenting coincides with Dr Laurie's new free online class, The Science of Wellbeing for Parents which is available now at Coursera.org https://www.coursera.org/. You can sign up at drlauriesantos.com/parents http://drlauriesantos.com/parents. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:08Laurie Santos?

  Pushkin.

• 1:15Laurie Santos?

  When it comes to raising kids, most of us are familiar with the traditional reward and punishment model. Your toddler throws a tantrum, timeout. Your teenager breaks curfew, they're grounded. But is this really the best way to raise happy, healthy adults? On today's episode of our special series on happier parenting, we'll meet an expert who's convinced we can do better.

• 1:35Speaker 05

  I'm Dr. Becky Kennedy. I'm a clinical psychologist. I am a mom of three and I am the founder of Good Inside.

• 1:43Laurie Santos?

  Good Inside is a company that offers simple, actionable strategies for parents struggling with their kids' challenging behavior. It's also the title of Dr. Becky's bestselling book and the name of her popular parenting podcast. Dr. Becky's work is rooted in the belief that every child is, quote, "good inside", even when they're acting out. And while our instinct might be to lecture, yell, or take away privileges when our child acts out, Dr. Becky thinks we need to be a little bit grateful in those moments because she sees meltdowns and rule breaking as signals, important clues that point to an underlying problem which needs to be understood, not punished. Now, does that mean that Dr. Becky wants us to condone bad behavior? No, but she does believe there's a better way to respond.

• 2:27Speaker 05

  When a kid hits, when they're whining, when they never listen, no part of me is like, "Oh, that's amazing. That's your kid's natural expression of their feelings. We should celebrate." No. I always say the right answer is often between two extremes. And if one extreme is you see behavior that's bad, and then what we do is we kind of unconsciously assume our child is bad. That is why we send them away. That would bring a punishment-based approach. I'm not such a fan. What I think is really powerful is if we see our kids' bad behavior as a sign of what they need. And again, that doesn't mean behavior is okay.

• 3:11Speaker 05

  But if I always drop my phone and it shattered, that might be a sign I need a phone protector case. That doesn't mean it's okay that I dropped my phone. It actually means I have a way of fixing the problem. So if you see your kids hitting a sibling, for example, as a sign of what they might need, you're going to activate curiosity. You're going to end up asking yourself different questions instead of saying, "What is wrong with my kid?" We'd say to ourselves instead, "I wonder what was going on for my kid right before they hit. I wonder what skill my kid would need to manage the frustration of sharing a toy with their sibling, but not have that frustration come out as a hit."

• 3:56Speaker 05

  Makes me think about the difference in a basketball coach saying, "Why is my player missing all their layups? Why? You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to send them to their room."

• 4:02Laurie Santos?

  I'm going to make them do laps around the court over and over again until they figure out, yeah.

• 4:06Speaker 05

  Versus a coach that says, "Wait a second. What is getting in my player's way of making a layup? What skill would they need? And then when can we practice? Ooh, tomorrow I'm going to get them in the gym and I'm going to really look at their form. And then I'm going to say, "Oh, I figured it out. Okay. I'm going to teach them something new and then I'm going to practice something new." And I don't think any of us would say, oh, my goodness, Becky, what a permissive basketball coach. I mean, that coach is basically saying it's okay to miss shots. It's so crazy. No, we would say, what a great coach. They're using, quote, bad behavior as a sign of what might be going on. Then they can understand what's going on. Then they can build a new skill and practice and boom, the behavior actually improves.

• 4:49Speaker 05

  So that's what the good inside approach is all about, but not for basketball, but for kids' behavior.

• 4:54Laurie Santos?

  I love this approach for two reasons. One is it really touches on something that we talk about a lot, which is this idea of growth mindset, right? Your kid is not fixed, their behavior is not fixed. The goal is skills learning, but it's also kind of putting the parent's role into kind of like the light. In some ways, you are kind of coaching your kids, hopefully, towards skills building, towards better emotional regulation, towards better behavior over time. And I know this is something that you've talked about a lot, right? This idea that parents need to know what their role is. From your perspective, what's the parent's role and how should they be thinking about it?

• 5:27Speaker 05

  I love you for so many reasons, but I love you for asking that question. This whole thing about what is a parent's role? What is a parent's job? It came from years in private practice where parents would come to me about a variety of things. The tantrums, the rudeness, the clinging, even though they know everyone at the birthday party, whatever it is. And I'd always say to a parent, what is your job in that tricky situation? And they'd always say the same thing. I don't know, just tell me what to do. That's why I'm big on metaphors. Like, imagine going to an office on the first day of your job and your boss saying, do your job well. And then you look and you realize, I don't have a job description. And by the way, I don't know what that person next to me does and where their job starts and ends, and my job starts and ends.

• 6:11Speaker 05

  I feel like in that position, that person would say, how could I do my job well? If I don't know what my job is? Knowing what your job is with complete clarity is a precondition to doing any job well. And so when it comes to parenting. We have to change our first question to what is my job? And I'll give you a definition that actually works for any situation. In my mind, a parent always has two jobs. One is setting boundaries and the second is connecting to your kid's lived experience, which is another way of saying validating their feelings. And let me explain both because these jobs work in tandem. Let's start with boundaries. Boundaries are key decisions we make.

• 6:57Speaker 05

  They're limits we set. And boundaries really ensure that we keep our kids safe. The reason we set a boundary around TV time is because we don't think it's great or safe for a kid to watch TV three hours after their bedtime. The reason I hold my kid when they're crossing the street, when they're flailing and saying, let me go, isn't because I want to have control over my kid. It's because I want to keep them safe and they're not exactly in the right mind space to be crossing the street. Those are boundaries. Now, to be clear, kids have one reaction to boundaries. Not happy.

• 7:34Laurie Santos?

  To be fair, it's not kids, right? Like when people set boundaries with me, I'm not like super thrilled about that either.

• 7:39Speaker 05

  100%. A boundary is really a way of saying to someone else, you want something and I'm saying no. Nobody likes having their desires thwarted. Nobody does well. So when you set a boundary, and this is so important, because we have some unconscious belief, and me too, that like, I'm going to set some really good boundary for my kid. My kid's going to be like, that is amazing parenting, mom. Thank you. I do need to go to bed. Thank you for turning off the TV. Never. No child in my house or any child I know who's normal has ever said that. When you set a boundary, which is part one of your job, your kid actually does their job. They feel their feelings. And I know that's an inconvenient truth,

• 8:20Speaker 05

  but the reason that's our kid's job is kids can't develop skills to manage feelings they don't allow themselves to have. And so if you want your kid to be an adult who can manage frustration and anger and not be a 30 year old who acts like a two year old, then you want your kid to feel all the feelings when they're two and not 30. I say, TV time's over. I turn it off. My kid does not say, thank you. They say, why? And all my friends get more screen time and you're the worst, yada, yada, yada. And now it's actually amazing. I can do part two of my job. I validate the feelings they have, which would sound like this. Oh, you really wish you could watch TV. Or Oh, it's the worst when you're watching a show and you can't finish it because TV time is up. Or, oh, I really hate when my TV time is over too. I get it.

• 9:06Speaker 05

  What I'm doing, and this is really important, is I'm seeing my kids' feelings as real. I don't have to agree with them. I don't have to think the extent or intensity of the feeling is right or wrong. It just is. I'm seeing it as real. And there's a wash, rinse, repeat. I set a boundary I think is right. My kid gets upset. I validate the feeling. And then this is important, because parents can say, oh, so then just because my kid's upset, they get to watch another show? No. Validating feelings goes hand in hand with holding your boundaries. So another example, hey, sweetie, it's time to leave the park. My kid is gonna say, no, I want to stay in the park. I might say something to them like,

• 9:47Speaker 05

  look, if it's too hard to walk to the car, I will pick you up and carry you because it's really time to go. Okay. Maybe your kid listens, then maybe they don't. If they don't, I'm gonna pick them up. What is a kid gonna do? They're gonna kick and scream. And as I carry my kid to the car, I'm gonna do the other part of my job. It stinks to leave before you want. You probably wish you were an adult and could make all your own decisions. I get that. Leaving the park is so hard, but I am not bringing them back to the park. I am saying that while I'm carrying them in a sturdy way to the car. And that job, boundaries, validation, that's always an orienting principle I come back to.

• 10:24Laurie Santos?

  There's something else you said about the boundaries that I think is really important, because I think sometimes when parents set a boundary, they think it's like they're telling their kid what to do, like, stop with the TV. But you've argued that a boundary works a little bit differently. It has that part, but it's actually something else. What is the something else?

• 10:40Speaker 05

  All the time I hear from parents, and honestly, I hear from non-parents, just adults, my mother-in-law does not respect my boundaries. My kid does not listen to my boundaries. Let me share my definition of boundaries, and then we can hear together why those things don't really make sense. First, a boundary is something I tell someone I will do, and it requires the other person to do nothing. So over and over, I hear frustration from parents. My kids don't respect my boundaries. And I'll say, tell me about a boundary you set. And they say, oh, no jumping on the couch. My kid is jumping on the couch. And I look at them and I say, stop jumping on the couch. We don't do that. And then we look at that kind of definition. Did you tell your kid something you will do? And they say, no.

• 11:23Speaker 05

  Does the success of your boundary require your kid to do nothing? No. And this is like an aha moment where they're like, am I not setting a boundary? But there's, no, you're not. You're making a request and we have to make requests all the time. But requests aren't boundaries. This is a boundary. And this is why I always say good inside parenting. It's sturdy. It's not gentle. And I don't mind the word gentle. Everyone's like, is it gentle? I just think the words we use have a power to evoke different parts of us. I know for me, I'm not really accessing being gentle. I'm not accessing being harsh. I'm doing the thing in the middle. I'm being sturdy. Here's a boundary. Hey, sweetie, I need you to get off the couch. They look at me and keep jumping because I have one of those kids too. This is a boundary. I'm going to walk over to you.

• 12:08Speaker 05

  And if by the time I get there, it's still too hard to get off the couch, I will put my arms around you. I will place you on the ground and I'll show you a safer place to jump. That's not right in front of our class table. Okay, to be clear, when I go to pick up my kid, would you better bet I'm going to do? Again, my kid's going to say, give me one more chance, two more jumps. I don't want to get off. You're so mean. Doesn't matter. My boundary is what I do. It's an embodiment of my authority. My kid's going to probably try to make a dodge back to the couch. What they're saying is, am I more powerful than you? Are you going to let me override the cockpit and be in charge? And they need to test that because actually they need to know that we are the sturdy pilot

• 12:51Speaker 05

  who will not let them pilot the plane, especially not when they're in that state. And then I would block my kid and then that other part. Oh, it's no fun to jump on the floor. You wish you could jump on the couch. Oh, I get that. That is absolutely not an option. Oh, and I guess those are your choices. No jumping anywhere or jump somewhere less fun. That's so tricky. I have a feeling you're going to figure it out. That to me is the essence of boundary setting. And that to me is the essence of real sturdiness. And so when parents say you're not punishing your kids, you're just raising snowflakes. I'm like, go watch me in action. You are sorely, sorely mistaken.

• 13:28Laurie Santos?

  But this gets to, I think, another misconception parents have about the kind of second part, this sort of validating the emotions part. Because I think sometimes parents think that that requires them to be the kind of so-called happiness police, that something about managing kids' safety requires managing emotional safety. But you've sort of pushed back against the happiness police idea. Why is it that we have to kind of allow our kids to go through these moments of discomfort?

• 13:52Speaker 05

  Oh, yes. You know, these are one of these moments where I'll be out with friends, totally social dinner. And someone will make some offhand comment like, Becky, don't you just want your kids to be happy? It's all we want, right? And I feel like my husband will look at me like, Becky, please just

• 14:08Laurie Santos?

  He knows what's coming next.

• 14:10Speaker 05

  Just nod and move on. But I can't because I'll be like, no, that's not what I want. And it's so interesting how again, then people go to the other extreme. People will say to me, you want your kids to be unhappy? Whoa, like, no, I'm not like wishing unhappiness on the humans I love the most. But the idea of wanting our kids to be happy, I think, is a well-intentioned, but widely misguided wish that actually has the complete opposite impact on kids. They're developing circuitry in their body. For what range of emotions am I set up to cope with? How capable am I of dealing with uncomfortable experiences? I'm talking about things like,

• 14:54Speaker 05

  Mom, I'm the only one in my class who can't read. And as a parent, let me just say it's painful when your kid says that because we love our kids so much, right? I think what we're often tempted to say is something like, that can't be true. Or, everybody reads at their own pace. Or, okay, but you are the only kid who can do multiplication. So what we have the urge to do is we see our kid disappointed, sad, frustrated, mad, jealous, some version of uncomfortable. And to some degree, we think our job in the moment is to pluck them out of that feeling and bring them to a happy feeling. Another metaphor I like to think of is like, we find them on a bench. And this is the bench of, I can't read books yet.

• 15:39Speaker 05

  I'm noticing people around me can do things I can't, which by the way, will happen for the rest of your life, or people have things I don't have, or I just feel less than. And when we see our kid on that bench, we see a sunnier bench. And we're just like, come with me there. It's so sunny there. Why is this not ideal? Because resilience in adulthood is actually based on our ability to kind of proverbially like sit on all the benches we come across in life. I know my kid, when they're older, at some point, they're gonna, I don't know, be in a class in college where they're intimidated by people. They're gonna get a bad grade. They're not gonna be invited to someone's birthday party. They're gonna get fired for a job. They're gonna think they're gonna get a job and not get it. They're not gonna get a promotion. They're gonna be embarrassed in public.

• 16:23Speaker 05

  All of the things that happen in childhood won't happen in the exact form in adulthood, but they will happen with the same set of feelings in adulthood. And if when my kid is an adult, what they've learned is when I feel jealous, sad, nervous, mad, less than, I look around for the happy. Where is the happy? All that sets my kid up for is anxiety and fragility. So what's the alternative? And this is gonna sound so counterintuitive, but I'll explain it. Let me go back to that example. My kid's on this bench of feeling less than, which sounds like I'm the only one who can't read. Now, again, we don't have to go to the other extreme. I say, it's so true. You're so stupid.

• 17:06Speaker 05

  Duh. No, do not recommend. Okay? But if you think about your kid on that bench, what would it mean to just sit on the bench with them? In some ways, to say to your kid, you're on this bench and you're uncomfortable. I'm not scared of this bench. I don't need to pluck you off the bench. The only reason I would need to do this if this bench was like gonna eat you alive. It's just a bench. By the way, he'll sit here a million times, so let me just plop down next to you. And then what you're doing is the most profound thing we can do as parents, is you're making sure your kid is no longer alone. Feelings don't overwhelm kids. Feeling alone in feelings overwhelm kids. And it's actually the experience of repeated aloneness in a feeling that leads to adult anxiety, because you get encoded in the overwhelm of being alone.

• 17:51Speaker 05

  So I just want to give you a few lines, because I'm one to make things concrete. First thing you can say to your kid when they say anything they're upset about, I'm so glad you're talking to me about this.

• 18:00Laurie Santos?

  Not just parenting advice, it's just kind of general relationship advice.

• 18:03Speaker 05

  I was talking about this on a podcast a little while ago, and my husband, who doesn't usually listen, was like, you know those three lines, just saying when I talk to you about stuff that's hard at work? Like, I would like those lines. And so, first line is just, I'm so glad you're talking to me about this. The second line is saying to a kid, I believe you. And then the third line is just, tell me more. Because what you're really doing is you're saying to your kid in this powerful way, I am not afraid of your feelings. They will not swallow anyone. And because I can tolerate this feeling in you, you will be able to tolerate this feeling in you. Now ironically, Lori, when it comes to happiness,

• 18:44Speaker 05

  regulating difficult emotions is a prerequisite. So really, if we quote, want our kid to be happy, what we should really focus on is not fixing their unhappiness, but really helping them sit with it and cope with it.

• 19:02Laurie Santos?

  Letting your kids work through their own disappointment is hard. It's painful to watch someone you love struggle, especially when your impulse is to step in and fix everything. But just like adults, children need to learn how to tolerate discomfort in order to feel more at ease with themselves. Dr. Becky believes that raising resilient kids involves holding both of these truths at the same time, that we need to let our kids experience discomfort even though it sucks. After the break, we'll explore this idea of multiplicity and dive deeper into how optimizing for long-term happiness often means learning to sit with short-term distress for both children and adults. The Happiness Lab will be right back.

• 19:43Laurie Santos?

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• 20:25Laurie Santos?

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• 21:00Speaker 01

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• 21:38Laurie Santos?

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• 22:54Laurie Santos?

  From an evolutionary perspective, our most important goal in life is to make sure our kids survive so they can get their genes into the next generation. It therefore makes sense that parents have a built-in motivation to do everything in their power to protect their children. If your kid wanders near a saber-toothed tiger, it's your evolutionary duty to step in and keep them safe. But in modern society, that instinct to protect at all costs often leads to over-parenting, the tendency to take over for your kid in nearly every tricky situation. Study after study shows that over-parenting can inadvertently hurt the people we love most. Research shows that over-parenting can inhibit a child's capacity for autonomy, problem-solving, and even emotional resilience.

• 23:36Laurie Santos?

  So when your son or daughter finds themselves in a sticky situation, when should you let them face the consequences and figure things out alone? And when should you offer a helping hand? Clinical psychologist Dr. Becky Kennedy says that parents need to choose their moments of intervention very carefully.

• 23:52Speaker 05

  There are times you should swoop in. If your toddler is about to run across the street of New York City, swoop in.

• 23:59Laurie Santos?

  If they're sleeping in on the day of the SAT, you know, maybe give them a little nudge, swoop in, right?

• 24:05Speaker 05

  Swoop in. But swooping in has a more surprising impact on kids than we think, especially as they get older, because kids know someone swoops in because something's an emergency or because someone doesn't see me as capable. And where are kids' mirrors? To me, this is one of the most powerful things to think about as a parent. If I'm my kid's mirror, then I reflect to them the version of who they are. And so if I'm often reflecting my kid's lack of capability, which I don't think I'm doing, but I might unintentionally be doing by fixing so many things, it can't be surprised that as my kid gets older, I keep saying to friends, "Why can't they figure things out?

• 24:49Speaker 05

  Why can't they even remember their water bottle? Shouldn't they be able to do this at age 16?" Age doesn't bring skills. This is what I always tell parents. People say, "At what age will my kid stop having these meltdowns?" I feel like it's like someone saying, "At what age will my kid be able to swim?" And I say, "Well, are they learning how to swim?" "No." I'd be like, "I'm not blaming you, but like, at a certain age, no one's gifted swimming." No one is gifted competence and capability and confidence and regulation. It's not years, it's what you do in the years. And so reflecting capability is a really big part of the good inside approach. It's deeply uncomfortable because reflecting capability of your kid

• 25:35Speaker 05

  has to go hand in hand in recognizing potential discomfort in your kid and just letting it. That's why I'd say, let it, right? And again, am I going to let my kid miss their SAT? No, I'm a reasonable human. Am I gonna let my kid forget their water bottle? When, by the way, we've been talking about remembering your own water bottle? Yes, here's actually a really important difference. Too often in those situations, we do it from a place of frustration and punishment. So I'll say, I'm not bringing you your water bottle, you can deal with it. Nobody finds that inspirational. This is very different. Sweetie, I'm not going to bring you your water bottle. You're a strong kid, you'll figure it out. And when you get home, let's figure out just a better system to remember it.

• 26:20Speaker 05

  All the different things that happen that are hard, I really do say to myself, this is amazing. This is amazing learning that one of my kids waited so long and has to stay up late to work hard on a paper that they're now not going to be able to review with their teacher before, even though their teacher said they'll do that and they probably won't receive a great grade. What amazing learning.

• 26:36Laurie Santos?

  I love this. This is a gift, right? Like, you know, how much are they going to get better over time? Like, they're never going to put things off again because look at the terrible consequences they got, which is so important. But the problem as a parent, though, is that to hold, I'm doing this wonderful thing, I'm giving my kid learning, it's a gift. You have to hold that at the same time as, but I love my kid, I'm supposed to be a good parent. I'm allowing discomfort in a way that I could swoop in and fix, and I've committed to that. And that gets to something else that I know you talk about a lot, this idea of needing to hold psychologically this multiplicity, as you've called it, that like, you can be a really good parent and you can also let your kid forget their water bottle. You can be a really good parent and you could not remind them about the homework and that might cause them to get a bad grade

• 27:20Laurie Santos?

  or cause them to kind of have a really tough night when they're pulling an all-nighter. Talk to me about this multiplicity. How do we hold both of these things at once? And why is it so important to get good at doing this?

• 27:31Speaker 05

  So important. And again, this is where it's skills for life. So holding multiplicity is important with your kids, it's important with yourself, at work, in everything. A couple of things I want to say about that. Number one, I just want to be unabashed in saying I'm very long-term greedy in my parenting approach. Like, if I had to choose between short-term benefit and long-term benefit, by the way, I think we often can get both, but I would choose long-term. So when you do let your kid experience life, by the way, assuming again, you can't say to your kid and expect it to be effective. See, you stayed up late and you got a bad grade. Again, like, it's not that. It's like, huh, I wonder what happened? What would you have to do differently next time? Oh, you'd have to start sooner.

• 28:13Speaker 05

  I wonder if you have a paper coming up that you would think, oh, you do? What? Oh, it's due two Wednesdays from now? I wonder when you'd have to start? Oh, be the Wednesday before? Oh, my goodness, that's such a good idea. I wonder how you'll remember to do that? How would I? Oh, what? You're gonna put it in your calendar? Right? Leading my kid to the well. That is really important. But I think the operating principle around kind of multiplicity that lets me do that is, okay, I see my kid's distress here, but I'm not optimizing for their short-term happiness. I am optimizing for their long-term resilience. Those are very different things. I mean, this morning, I hadn't gone to the gym in weeks, and I was like, today's the day.

• 28:57Speaker 05

  I knew today was the day, just for 20 minutes. I just wanted to, like, get that boost of energy in the morning. If I was optimizing for my short-term happiness, you'd better bet I'm staying in bed. You would be in bed. And so, being long-term greedy, having that two things are true. My kid is having a hard time today, and I can support them and use this moment to build resilience for the future. We need support for us as parents to be able to do that. Scripts. A group of parents are saying, yeah, I'm doing that, too. We don't have a culture of supporting parents. We do, when you're pregnant, it's actually so interesting to me. When you're pregnant, people buy books, they take CPR courses, they invest a lot of money and time, and we're told in a societal way that's what we should do. As soon as you have a kid...

• 29:43Speaker 05

  We've really internalized this idea of maternal instinct. People say this, man, it's something I should be able to figure out on my own. I shouldn't need help. Because of this lack of support, we are living with like all of these fires. It's like whack a mole. And so that's like big picture. My mission is just to change that. Idea is to say, hey, my guess is of all of your values, parenting and your kid's mental health is probably toward the top of your list. My guess is if you look at your even expenses and the way you spend your energy, actually investing in support a parent would need is probably low on the list. It's so out of alignment. Once we have that, it's a lot easier. Without that, when we're alone, you just spiral.

• 30:26Laurie Santos?

  And this is why I love your work so much because you're kind of helping parents get these tools. And sometimes using those tools themselves can be really good for parents' wellbeing. I mean, one of my favorite tools that I know is one of your go-tos is the idea of getting curious, especially when you're dealing with a bad behavior or a failure or a screw up. Why is curiosity such a superpower when you're dealing with failure?

• 30:48Speaker 05

  I think curiosity is the opposite of like judgment. And I think so often when we struggle as adults, we just judge ourselves right away. I think that's because when we had hard moments when we were kids, when we had bad behavior, guess what most of us were probably met with? Judgment. Go to your room. Why would you do that? You're so selfish. You're crying, I'll give you something to cry about. And so we've wired in our body, struggle next to harsh judgment. And even though the harsh judgment part was initially someone else's voice, we've internalized it so much. This is so sad to me. It's become our own voice. And then we're hard on ourselves when we're triggered and we're reactive to our kids.

• 31:31Speaker 05

  But the truth is we react to them based on our own circuitry. We can't do something with our kids that we're not working on with ourselves. If I have wired my struggles next to judgment, then it makes sense, I'm going to say to my kid, what's wrong with you? You're so dramatic. You always ruin things, even though later at night I'm thinking, why did I say that? I promised myself I wouldn't say that. What is the answer to this? Change starts by changing your interaction with yourself, which is why I care so deeply about all the reparenting work we do. That is the most powerful thing to be able to be the parent you want to be. And curiosity is the key. So let's say as an adult, I just yelled at my kid. I think judgment activates so quickly. I'm such a monster. I messed up my kid forever.

• 32:15Speaker 05

  If anyone ever saw me, they wouldn't even believe the type of mother I am. I've said this to myself. I'm like, I'm Dr. Becky. Like, I'm yelling at my kid. What is wrong with me? But I think, I wonder what was going on for me in that moment? What led me to yell at my kid when they complained about dinner? And this is powerful. What actually happened earlier in my day or week? That probably put me in the up to the brim place I was in. So then complaining about dinner was just a straw that broke the camel's back and I yelled. This is curiosity. And I think one of the things, again, that we have to re-parent ourselves about is we mistakenly think being curious about bad behavior means you're condoning bad behavior.

• 32:59Speaker 05

  But again, like, I always think about other areas. Like, if I'm curious about why my star football quarterback keeps throwing interceptions, why are they doing that? Is it their positioning? Is it their timing? If a coach was saying that, I just can't imagine another coach would be like, oh, so you're condoning all these interceptions? It's just like, actually so weird. Curiosity is the key to change. Judgment is actually the key to being stuck and never changing, just ineffective. So curiosity, I wonder why I did that? To me, another phrase that's such beautiful compassionate curiosity is, I'm a good person. I was having a hard time. I wonder what came up for me in that moment? Because usually that's what happens. Like, something comes up.

• 33:44Speaker 05

  I have a fear about my kid. I worry people think I'm a bad parent. I worry my kid's a sociopath. Well, as long as I'm thinking about my four-year-old as a sociopath, I guess it makes sense that I'm yelling at them. Okay, how else would I have to interpret their behavior? To have a different thought and therefore probably be more able to stay calm. See, now curiosity allows me to make positive change.

• 34:05Laurie Santos?

  And these are all cases where you're using that curiosity on yourself as a parent, or maybe you did a behavior that, you know, wasn't so awesome. You've argued that we can use the same kind of technique when we're dealing with a kid's bad behavior. Let's say, you know, you find out your teenager lied to you. They went to some party that they weren't supposed to go to. Walk me through how you would use curiosity in that way. And maybe you're our boundary setting and our kind of validating feelings job as well.

• 34:29Speaker 05

  So let's say you have a teenager who lied to you. Lying to me is one of the best things to start with, because lying... There's an amount of lying that is so triggering to us as parents and we interpret it so personally. My teenager doesn't respect me, right? We kind of like center ourselves. Whenever I work with parents, one of the things I say is, okay, let's say you have someone in your life you love. Why would you lie to them? It's so interesting, Lori. I've never had anyone say, I would never.

• 34:55Laurie Santos?

  We know that this is a behavior that comes up occasionally, right?

• 35:00Speaker 05

  Right? I mean, why would you lie to someone that you love and respect? Why do you think you would?

• 35:05Laurie Santos?

  You were going through something terrible. You were really scared. Something else was off that was like making this either so scary or so overwhelming that you had no choice.

• 35:14Speaker 05

  You know, I'll add to it. For me, I think I would lie because I was scared of someone's reaction. I think I would also lie because on some level I was so ashamed or embarrassed about something I did that if I had to like share the truth, it's almost like I'd have to like relive it again. Like I'd have to face it.

• 35:29Laurie Santos?

  Yeah. The lies are often the doubling down on just being avoidant of what we've done and the shame of what we've done.

• 35:35Speaker 05

  Right? People think kids who lie, like again, you're so sociopathic. Actually, there's something so vulnerable in that moment. They're like, I actually feel so guilty that it's so consuming me that I have to almost pretend this thing didn't happen to survive the moment. Okay. So you have this kid who lies, right? And again, let's say we can maintain calm and not be triggered and not make it about us. How can you use curiosity? I'm going to model this exactly because it's gonna create controversy because it's different. And parents are gonna say, isn't that just letting them get away with it? We're so used to this adversarial control mindset. So let's say my kid's like, no, I didn't take money from your drawer. Meanwhile, I have some like Nest cam, I'm like seeing my son like taken. So obvious. Leading with curiosity would sound like this. This is

• 36:20Speaker 05

  actually important. In the moment, I probably wouldn't even ask. I would actually say as a life lesson, never ask someone a question you know the answer to. All you're doing is setting yourself up to get more frustrated with your kid. And say, look, I know you took that money from the drawer. And like, I don't even want to get into it. I just know it. I saw it on the video. I'm not going to lead with a punishment. I'm not going to lead with a lecture. There must have been something about going out to dinner with your friends that felt so important that you also feel like I really didn't understand. That you can be honest with me about. And that's not my way of saying it's okay, but we can deal with the okay, not okay part later. And I'm pretty sure you know it's not okay to steal or lie. What's actually really more important to me is our relationship and figuring out what actually I could do to make it easier to tell me the truth.

• 37:03Speaker 05

  I know parents listening are like WTF. You are going to make me raise a child who will lie to me forever. I would bet a hundred dollars your child will lie to you less. Because your kid will tell you the truth when they believe they can maintain a connection with you. When they tell you the truth. Kids are oriented by attachment from toddlers through teens, all of us are. They are primed to notice what will I tell my parent that will make them distance themselves from me? And what can I tell my parent that can still be held in love and safety? And in a way, when your kid lies to you, ironically, they're doing that to temporarily preserve attachment.

• 37:46Speaker 05

  Because on some level, they're thinking, as long as I don't tell my parent the truth, we're still connected. As soon as I tell my parent the truth, we're broken. And so anything we do to further that pattern, threaten, if you do that again, next time you're grounded. All we're doing ironically is making a kid even more predispositioned to lie because they can't beat the evolutionary system that just wants to be connected to you. When you lead instead with curiosity, you actually strengthen your relationship. And you develop a wider range of topics your teen feels comfortable telling you about.

• 38:23Laurie Santos?

  You're also modeling a great path for them to figure out their own behavior, right? I mean, even as an adult, sometimes when I do stuff and I screw stuff up or I, you know, lie or whatever, it's hard for me to uncover the reasons behind that. I have to get curious with myself. So if you're kind of modeling curiosity with them, it also seems like a great strategy to get them to realize like, oh, this is the same thing I can use when I screw up or when I fail or when I'm like not pleased with my own behavior.

• 38:47Speaker 05

  It's exactly right. I mean, a parent's words becomes a child's self-talk. That's also the long-term greedy nature of good inside. So. There's going to be a time when our teen is in their twenties and thirties, and they're going to do something that they're not proud of, right? Whatever it is, they lied to their spouse, or they told their friends they couldn't go to dinner because they're sick, but then their friends saw on Instagram they're actually just with other friends, right? And you want your kid to be able to pause and to say, I wonder why I did that. If your kid can do that, which by the way, comes from your curiosity in the face of their struggle, they are going to be a much more successful result in the future.

• 39:27Laurie Santos?

  So when you feel that impulse to get all judgmental, whether it's about your child or yourself, take a pause and get curious. Not only is that eagerness to learn more pleasant than feeling judgy, it also has the added bonus of fostering personal growth. But can parents do more than just get curious when a child is acting out? Could we turn these unpleasant moments into positive experiences? What if we can make these times fun, even joyful? After the break, Dr. Becky will share a tool that she keeps in her back pocket to make tough parenting moments more playful. The Happiness Lab will be back in a moment.

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• 41:59Laurie Santos?

  Clinical psychologist Dr. Becky Kennedy believes that the traditional reward punishment model of parenting is not just ineffective. It can also cause parents to miss out on important opportunities to connect with their kids. Like adults, children learn best not when they're feeling threatened or bribed, but when they feel safe and supported, and when they're having fun. In fact, Dr. Becky thinks we need to bring way more humor and goofiness into parenting than most caregivers usually think.

• 42:26Speaker 05

  Playfulness is so important, and I just want to name here. It's one of the hardest parts for parents.

• 42:31Laurie Santos?

  Because parenting doesn't often feel playful. It just feels like a grind 100% all the time. And so getting back to your, hey, it's just funsy time mode can just be really tough.

• 42:42Speaker 05

  I think there's that. And I would say I don't think most parents experienced a lot of playfulness from their parents.

• 42:49Laurie Santos?

  True, totally.

• 42:50Speaker 05

  People will say, why is it so hard for me to do pretend play when my kid is young? Or just joke around with my teen when they're older? And do parents hold a lot of guilt? Like, is something wrong with me? If play is hard for you, and if play feels awkward, all that's a sign of is play was likely not modeled to you by the adults in your life. And so any effort you make to be a little more playful, first of all, it will be awkward. Anything new feels awkward. But I really want anyone here just to tell themselves, that's like a cycle breaking act. I'm pretty brave and amazing to do something with my kids that no one did with me. And so why is playfulness important? I'll give a couple of examples. My kid's towel. Their towels are just always on the floor. And like, I don't know why it drives me nuts.

• 43:33Speaker 05

  Like, I don't, it's probably something inherited from my childhood. Like, of all the things, okay, the towel's on the floor. It's not like, fine that you don't respect me, like, you know? But it does bother me. And for so many years, I feel like I've said, "Hey, have you noticed the towel on the floor?" Couple of weeks ago, is what I said. Because my kids always joke that I'm so old and I'm over the hill. That's what they like to say to me, you know? And I'll say, "This is so weird. I feel like I see your towel on the floor." But like, my eyes, you know, my forties, like, are kind of going. And like, I don't know. My kid's like, "Yeah, Mom, I think you're over the hill. You know, I don't think there's a towel." And I'm like, "Really? Because I'm gonna like, walk over there slowly. I'm gonna get on my knees and just feel." And then while I do that, guess what my kid does? They go get their towel.

• 44:18Speaker 05

  And then I go and I touch the floor. And I'm like, "Oh, my goodness, that is so weird."

• 44:22Laurie Santos?

  My eyes are so bad. I need my bifocals. How terrible, yeah.

• 44:27Speaker 05

  And I just think about how that could go. Pick up your towel. I'm not picking up. I'm doing homework. If you don't pick up your towel now, no dessert. And then I'm like, "Why did I say that? I don't want to withhold dessert." And then I'm like, "Okay, I guess you can have fruit and whipped cream. That's not really dessert." I'm making stuff up. I'm getting in a fight. So what's the hardest part here? I actually think a lot of the moments to choose joy and to choose play, the alternative isn't calm. Often, the alternative is control and anger. The moments when you want to lead with control and anger are actually the best moments to try to infuse some play. Another example of this, and this is something I've done with younger kids for a while, but I've adapted it to an older kid version. Who is a kid who likes to clean up? Okay, look, no one's raising their hand. Cool, nobody likes to clean up.

• 45:10Speaker 05

  So what do you do when you have to get your kid to clean up? Often, you lead with anger and control. If you don't clean up, your toys are all gonna be in the garbage tomorrow. My kid's like, "Well, I've heard that empty threat before." I have something I call the "Close Your Eyes" hack. That's how it goes. I'm just gonna close my eyes. And all I'm saying is if when I open my eyes, all the red blocks are in the bin. And you can see I'm talking slowly, because guess what my kid is doing? They're doing it. I might, I might fall on the ground. I might do, and I was gonna say it here, I might do a butt dance. And I'm like, slap my butt. I just think about like a boss at work being like, oh my goodness, if your project is done, I might fall to the ground and do a butt dance. I feel like I'm like, I'm gonna finish my project. I wanna see that, you know?

• 45:52Laurie Santos?

  If all you need to do to get the house clean is the butt dance, like, bring it, you know? Yeah.

• 45:57Speaker 05

  Here's what I think I also want to empower parents with. People will say, that won't work with my 16 year old. Whenever you say that won't work, it's really limiting. Why does the close your eyes hack work? Okay, number one, you lead with trust and not control. If you think about saying to a kid, clean up, and then you just stare at them, again, imagine trying to do a report with your boss watching you at the computer. You'd freeze. If your boss at work says, I trust you to do this and walks away, you're gonna do it. And then add something silly and ridiculous. Trust, silly, ridiculous. So for your 16 year old, you could say, look, one of your chores is to clear the table or, you know, to make your bed.

• 46:39Speaker 05

  I'm gonna go check on your sibling. If when I get back here, that bed is made, I don't even know what I might do. And I might just like belt into a ridiculous song that like all you guys are singing and you're gonna tell me, mom, you're so annoying. This is so cringe. I just might do this. And my 16 year old will roll their eyes, but they'll probably have a smile on their face when I walk out. They feel more connected to me. There's a little more joy. And I bet the likelihood of that bed being made just skyrocketed.

• 47:05Laurie Santos?

  I love this because you're able to get stuff done without the negative emotion, right? And I feel like if only we can make parenting a little bit more goofy, a little bit more joyful and fun, a little bit more connected, parents would just feel so much better all the time.

• 47:19Speaker 05

  I think that's right. And I think pushback, I guess, when someone said, so everything has to be a game? Can't my kids just listen? But I think we underestimate how much as adults, we kind of cooperate with other people for the same reasons, like for fun. At the end of the day, cooperation and listening just means I'm doing something you want me to do that I don't want to do. Because anytime you say to a 16 year old, hey, you can be on your phone for two hours. I don't know anyone who's like, I'm not doing it. When we're talking about cooperation, we really mean I want my kid to do something and they don't want to do it. So as an adult, if you think, I don't want to do something, but someone else wants me to do it, why would I listen to them? Like if I'm having lunch with you, Lori, and one of my friend walks by and is like, can you guys both come help me pack up my apartment?

• 48:04Speaker 05

  And I'm like, no. And they're like, well, if you don't do it, I'm never gonna be friends with you again. I'm like, yeah, not doing it. If they say, I have this like amazing, I don't know, music to play. And I'm gonna get some like ice cream delivered. What do you think? I feel like you and I might be like, okay. Yeah. Play and levity is always a motivator to do things you don't want to do. And so it's not, do I have to play games? Why can't my kid just listen? It's actually, kids operate based on the same principles adults operate based on.

• 48:33Laurie Santos?

  I think this final insight is so important. Kids are motivated by the same principles that adults are. They prefer connection and validation to anger and judgment. And they respond way more favorably to humor and fun than they do to being forced. I'm so thrilled that Dr. Becky was able to share all her insights with us today. Her Good Inside approach is a reminder that if we respond to our kids' defiance as a signal of unmet needs or lagging skills, we can summon the curiosity needed to discover what's really going on and react a bit more happily. But let's do a quick recap of the tips Dr. Becky shared today. First, we need to remember that the job description of being a parent involves two separate but important roles. We need to set boundaries, but we also need to validate.

• 49:17Laurie Santos?

  The boundary part keeps children safe and grounded, while the validation part helps us build trust and connection. But validation doesn't mean giving in. Saying, I get how hard this is, while holding the line will teach your child that their emotions are real and manageable without rewarding that not so great behavior. Second, parents do not need to fix a child's feelings. They just need to make space for them. So challenge that happiness police mentality. Your goal is not to make your kids happy all the time, but to teach them that they can feel safe sitting with discomfort, a lesson that's super important for handling real life adversity later on. Tip number three, when in doubt, shoot for long-term greedy parenting. Try to avoid going for the kinds of short-term comforts that prevent resilience in the future.

• 50:01Laurie Santos?

  But give yourself some grace while doing this, because parenting for the future is not easy, which gets to tip number four, multiplicity. Remember that you need to hold two truths at once. I love my kid deeply, and I'm okay letting them face a tough moment. Tip number five, summon curiosity. Curiosity leads to understanding and change, but judgment usually keeps us and our kids stuck. Tip number six is to choose playfulness over control. Bringing the fun back to tough situations can lead to connection and motivation without all the power struggles. So the next time you're tempted to lay down the law, maybe try a butt dance instead. Because play doesn't just make parenting easier, it actually makes it more joyful, too. And today's final tip, number seven,

• 50:46Laurie Santos?

  always give yourself and your child the benefit of the doubt. As Dr. Becky often says, even when we're not at our best on the outside, we're still good inside. Next week on the Happiness Lab, we'll continue our deep dive into strategies for happier parenting. We'll be asking, what can we do to better motivate our kids? We'll learn about the power of developing what's called a mentor mindset. We'll see that there are ways to hold our kids to high standards while validating their agency and independence. We'll also hear how these same strategies for collaborative troubleshooting can help you on the job and in your relationships, too. That's all next time in our special season on Happier Parenting on the Happiness Lab with me, Dr. Laurie Santos.

• 51:33Laurie Santos?

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