An Honest Take on Parenting Today (With Dr. Becky Kennedy)

On today’s episode, John speaks with clinical psychologist Dr. Becky Kennedy about being a sturdy parent, the effect kids have on marriages, and why parenting can be lonely. Next Steps: ✨Learn more about Good Inside. 📙Buy Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be on Amazon. 👩 Follow Dr. Becky Kennedy on Instagram. 📞 Ask John a question! Call 844-693-3291 or send us a message. 📚 Building a Non-Anxious Life 📝 Anxiety Test 📚 Own Your Past, Change Your Future ❓ Questions for Humans Conversation Cards 💭 John's Free Guided Meditation 🤘🏼 The Dr. John Delony Show Merch Connect With Our Sponsors: Get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp. Get 15% off with code DELONY at Bon Charge. Get up to 40% off with code DELONY at Cozy Earth. Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe. Go to Hallow for a 90-day free trial. Visit Helix Sleep for special offers! Get 20% off with code DELONY at Organifi. Get 25% off your order at Thorne. Go to Trainwell to get started! Explore More From Ramsey Network: 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💰 George Kamel 🪑 Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman 📈 EntreLeadership Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:05Dr. John Delony?

  Here's what I'm hearing from dads.

• 0:07Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 0:08Dr. John Delony?

  They're just opting out.

• 0:10Speaker 01

  We interpret struggle as our fault.

• 0:13Dr. John Delony?

  Yes. What's the antidote to that?

• 0:14Speaker 01

  I mean, I think there's a bunch of antidotes for that.

• 0:17Dr. John Delony?

  I had an experience when my show took off. There was a big, dirty secret that I carried, which was...

• 0:28Dr. John Delony?

  What's up? What's up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. And this is the episode that I've gotten the most requests for from the people of the internet. That's you, the folks who listen to our show, the folks who are always checking us out on YouTube or on the social screens or wherever people happen to consume this show. This is the episode people have been asking me for. I recently flew to New York City and sat down with my new friend, Dr. Becky Kennedy of Good Inside. What many believe is she's the parenting expert on the planet right now. And she has an incredible vibrant community.

• 1:10Dr. John Delony?

  And we sat down to talk parenting, how to be married with kids, everything. She is one of the leading voices with parenting today. I'm so excited. We had a great time hanging out. And I can't wait for you to hear my conversation with the great and powerful Dr. Becky Kennedy. Check it out. Dude, thanks for inviting me into your studio. This is awesome.

• 1:35Speaker 01

  I'm so happy to be talking with you.

• 1:36Dr. John Delony?

  This is the coolest, man.

• 1:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, so I would have, when I started doing this, I never would have thought that on the Instagrams, on the internets, that more people would send me back and forth your stuff. And so as I got into it early, I thought I was the smartest guy in the room. Because... And you have changed my parenting and my approach to being married probably more than anybody else, you and Esteban Perel, probably the two people who have impacted me the most. So, thank you for, for doing that, for showing me like, um, it's, it's kinda like, uh, flying on an airplane and then you think, I could probably drive this, right? When it comes to like, how to be a good partner, how to, how to have kids, all that stuff. So, I'm imagining we'll get through one or two of these questions that I have.

• 2:21Dr. John Delony?

  I've got tons of these things. Um, and as I'll tell my audience, like, this is a thinly veiled, I need your help. That's what we're asking here. So, I wanna start here. What I've seen over the last, I've been working with young people for a long time, for a couple of decades, and what I've seen increase over the last probably 10 years, but especially in the last five, is that kids feel like, seem to be holding the emotional space of the household. Like, the whole house rests on kids, whether they're teenagers, whether they're college kids, or even newborns. Like, the whole, mom, parents are looking at their kids to say, are we okay? In my guts, that doesn't feel right. That feels too much, so that a kid can't carry that. Am I out to lunch here?

• 3:04Speaker 01

  I do not think you're out to lunch here. And, you know, yeah, so, yeah, I, I have a little more to say. You're definitely not out to lunch, we'll start there, it's always a good starting point. I mean, I think what you're also pointing to is some things happened in terms of, like, an overcorrection, where, I don't know, when we were being raised, or even generations before, it was like, parents in charge, I don't really care about how you're feeling, go to your room, you know, pull up your bootstraps, let's move on. And then I think there has been this overcorrection to, how are my kids feeling? And I am not only so hyper attentive to how they're feeling, but now we've gone from

• 3:44Speaker 01

  not caring about kids' feelings, to, my kids' feelings have the power to dictate what I do as a parent. And I actually think, you know, I love a pilot metaphor, I have so many, we'll see how many I can get in today. But if you think about one version of a pilot, the whole passenger cabin is upset, there's turbulence, you're like, oh my god, turbulence! And let's say, version one of a pilot was like, generations ago, as a parent who'd say, everyone be quiet, you're making a big deal out of nothing, zip it! Okay? You know, it's not really what I want to hear as a passenger. I'm kind of like, does the pilot even realize it's turbulent? Or I probably get more activated. But Pilot 2, to me, is the overcorrection, which is, "Oh, my God, turbulence! And whoa, everyone has to be calm.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  In fact, I'm not even calm when you're not calm. And maybe someone could come into the cockpit and tell me how to do this." And you're like, "Oh, my goodness. Like, I'm not even scared of the turbulence anymore. I'm really scared that this person is my pilot." Like, literally, my feelings have gone from not important to contagious in a way that is equally as kind of scary to me. And I think a good insight, what we stand for, and then what we try to make very practical, is kind of thinking about parenting as that pilot you want. You want a pilot who's going to validate your experience. "Hey, I hear there's a lot of screaming. We get it. There's turbulence." And even a pilot who says, "You guys want to keep screaming back there? Do your thing." Because what I know, and this is the boundary point,

• 5:14Speaker 01

  is I've kind of flown planes a long time. I know I'm going to get us to the ground safely. So it makes sense you're upset. I know what I'm doing, and I will see you on the ground. And I know if I'm the passenger, I'm like, "Oh, okay. They told me my experience is real, but they also weren't taken over by my experience. There's validation, but then there's also this boundary and differentiation. My pilot didn't become my anxiety." And I think what you're saying is we have to, we kind of have to come back a little bit toward, toward the middle.

• 5:47Dr. John Delony?

  You've got a, you gave me a word. I've probably quoted you 100 times. The word's sturdy. And that's the best word. Like, it's not rigid. It's not soft. It is like a tree. It'll sway, but that sucker's rooted into the ground. If I back all the way out, working with parents...

• 6:09Dr. John Delony?

  I almost am struggling with asking a parent to be sturdy because I don't feel like adults are sturdy right now.

• 6:14Speaker 01

  I know.

• 6:14Dr. John Delony?

  I feel like they're all over the place and almost needing a kid to be anchored, right? Am I, am I crazy?

• 6:20Speaker 01

  No, I think this is what we're saying is you don't want a pilot who looks to the passengers to know if they are safe on a plane.

• 6:29Dr. John Delony?

  So where do you tell a couple who's struggling like, like in a marriage?

• 6:34Speaker 01

  I mean, I, I think sturdiness in what you're saying, it is this ability, let's just define it, kind of to me, being sturdy is your ability at once to know what's going on for you, to know your values, to know your limits, to be connected to yourself. While at the same time, you're kind of just still porous enough that I can connect to you. I can know what's going on for you. I can see that as real as important, but I can balance that with what is going on for me. I'm not taken over by it, but I'm also not so threatened by it that I have to push it away. And I think what you're saying is how can we be sturdy for our kids? If often we don't feel sturdy ourselves or sturdy

• 7:18Speaker 01

  in the partnership we're in, given that's a foundation for our family. And I think this is actually the right question. And it is why I feel so passionate about the work that is good inside, because I think we approach the whole system at once.

• 7:33Dr. John Delony?

  That's it, that's it, yeah.

• 7:34Speaker 01

  That's what it is. How can I understand how to validate my kid's experience and understand that? Yeah, it wouldn't be a big deal in my life, but it is a big deal to not be invited to a birthday party. How can I see that as real for my four year old? But not add on my own anxiety of, oh, my goodness, my four year old's never gonna have friends.

• 7:53Dr. John Delony?

  And I'll call that mother and say, you should have invited my kid.

• 7:55Speaker 01

  Exactly. Right? And so I think what it starts with is developing a different type of relationship with ourselves. If I'm someone who grew up in a kind of, stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about household, right? We don't do this in our family. You're soft, whatever it is. Then it makes sense when I see my kid upset. I get very triggered. I yell or I shut them down because at some point. It was adaptive to shut my own emotions down during my earliest years. And so I think sturdiness, as an example, if that's a parent I'm talking to, I'd say, look, I know you want to show up in a different way to your kid. That's amazing. And let's have an order of operations in which that makes sense.

• 8:39Speaker 01

  I can't give out what I don't have inside me. It just, the math doesn't work. So I might even say, tell me about something hard in your day. It can be really hard if you grew up thinking emotions were soft. And actually, the starting point before I talk to my kids differently is even just to be able to say to myself, I had traffic today. That wasn't the biggest deal in the world. But I'm also allowed to take a moment to say, that was annoying. My morning didn't start out the way I wanted it to.

• 9:05Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 9:06Speaker 01

  That is not what I imagined. That's not what I would have wanted. Our ability to even just take a moment and say that to ourselves, that's going to make us better able to not be so thrown off by my kid's emotion because I'm building up the skill inside.

• 9:20Dr. John Delony?

  I, I had an experience.

• 9:24Dr. John Delony?

  When my show took off, there was a big, dirty secret that I had carried, which was, I'm out here traveling the country, talking to folks. But my daughter, she was five or six, wouldn't hug her dad. And I couldn't figure it out. And at first, it was like, I'm, I'm a big guy. I could pick her up. And she would go rigid. And, and it was kind of a funny game, but also it wasn't funny. And it wasn't until my wife said, is there any chance that her body's identified you as not safe? And I remember thinking, you know, I said out loud, like, I don't yell. I don't hit anybody. Like, she goes, no, no, no, you're a great dad. But we all can feel the nuclear reactor here, right? And I got frustrated and I went and sat with a therapist and I was like,

• 10:10Dr. John Delony?

  and nine months later, I remember a, and it was going through some hard stuff, right? And I remember those, speaking the words out loud. We were all wrestling and I said the words, Josephine, get off me. And I remember.

• 10:26Dr. John Delony?

  I was like, no way, right? And now, three or four years later, I'm a human jungle gym. She can't get off. But I realized the angst and the turmoil in my house was, you keep doing this. It's funny because just maybe a month ago, I was sitting in front of that same therapist. And I said, I just need what I know to be true to be here.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:45Dr. John Delony?

  And she's like, that's a long journey. And, but what you're saying rings true with me, which is my kids can't not be anxious if I'm electric all the time. Or if me and my partner aren't doing good, they can't, they don't have anything to anchor into.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:01Dr. John Delony?

  And so, but I walk around blaming them for the tension in the house. And all they're doing is absorbing and putting back into what I'm putting in there.

• 11:11Dr. John Delony?

  I feel like we have a culture that's, that, that loops and loops on this idea of being happy, happy, happy, happy. And then, which depending on where you, what you Google, it's always spits out some kind of curve, right? The U-shaped happiness curve of your life. But there's this idea that having kids takes happiness from you. And now, for the first time in history, people are just opting out completely.

• 11:36Dr. John Delony?

  How do you balance, and you do the best at this, of telling the truth and also telling the truth? How do you navigate looking at somebody saying, you can, we're in a, in a world, in a little silverware of history, you can choose whatever you want. And having kids isn't the funnest thing or the happiest thing all the time. But also on the back end, the research says the depth of joy is pretty profound.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:57Dr. John Delony?

  And there's, there's, there's something worth, it's kind of like doing a workout, right? There's something worth going in there and being uncomfortable for an hour so that 30 years from now, I can roll around with my grandkids, right?

• 12:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:08Dr. John Delony?

  How do you walk through that season with somebody talking, your happiness shouldn't dictate, right? It, it shouldn't dictate every minute of your day. And there's some things to sacrifice for.

• 12:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think you're asking so many, so many questions here, like, and all the right ones. So, number one is, what is the difference between kind of short-term convenience and...

• 12:32Dr. John Delony?

  Gosh, that's the right word, convenience.

• 12:34Speaker 01

  It's convenience. I think that's what, I, I actually feel like... Humanity, humans, we like convenience. It's hard to fight it. It's dopamine, it's ease, it's the thing that short term our body's like, yes, please, more of that. And so there've always been these moments, I think, in history where, you know, society, we have more convenience in our life. Obviously, the car is one, the plane, the internet. Something has happened, I think, in the last number of years where I think we will always choose convenience over what is long-term good for us. It's hard, but I think we're seeing even in whether people are deciding to have children or not, even how we interact with our kids, that we are prioritizing convenience in a

• 13:18Speaker 01

  way I think that we never have before, to the degree it makes us kind of worried at times like, ooh, what is it gonna be like in 20, 30 years, right? Obviously, the world, right? We have a lot of inconvenient moments. And I think that is something around parenthood that we just have to talk more about. Having young kids is massively inconvenient. I think that's like the best definition. Like, I go to the grocery store, I'm just trying to get milk and some orange juice. My kid has a meltdown, and I'm like, now I have to leave, and now I have to put those things back, and I can't even pay for them because the line is too long, and now I have to get back there. That is hugely inconvenient, and we don't say that enough. It's not rainbows and butterflies when you have your three-year-old freaking out and

• 14:02Speaker 01

  your six-month-old on your chest, right? And I actually think the more we can help people anticipate these inconvenient moments, know that those moments aren't a sign that something's wrong with you or wrong with your kid, it doesn't mean you're doing something so bad. And when we can help a generation of adults build more coping skills for the inconvenient grocery store meltdown, for the inconvenient, no, you do it for me, puzzle moment with your kid, for the inconvenient moment of, I thought I was gonna have 10 minutes alone with my kid after work before they go to bed, and instead they're protesting and they're having a hard time. All of those moments are a gap between our perceived unconscious expectation and reality.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  And I think speaking more honestly about parenting doesn't make parenting less desirable. It actually makes parents a lot more competent and a lot more equipped for all of the ups and downs that are just inherent in the journey.

• 14:58Dr. John Delony?

  Well, that's what I love about what you guys do here at Good Inside is

• 15:03Dr. John Delony?

  It's the same way when I talk to a husband or a dad who grew up getting beat up, getting thrown around and finding himself not wanting to repeat that, but there's no other plan.

• 15:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:14Dr. John Delony?

  And if I can take away, if I can demoralize it and I can take away this, like you have character issues and say, dude, you lack some skills, man.

• 15:22Speaker 01

  That's exactly it.

• 15:22Dr. John Delony?

  You've never practiced this before.

• 15:23Speaker 01

  That's exactly it.

• 15:24Dr. John Delony?

  But you give parents permission to say, you've never had a meltdown with a three year old.

• 15:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:31Dr. John Delony?

  I remember getting two kids out of car seats and thinking, I would rather set myself on fire.

• 15:35Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 15:36Dr. John Delony?

  Like I can just, it will take me 30 seconds to go in that store and get what I need. And yet it's the in and the out. But you distill it down to a set of skills people don't have.

• 15:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 15:46Dr. John Delony?

  And when it's a skill, then I can practice it. It's a free throw. I can practice that. If it's a shame-filled failure, I'm not going to practice. I'm just going to try to bulldoze through it or I'm going to try to go around it, right? Ignore it.

• 15:56Speaker 01

  That's right. I mean, I think, I really think parenting is the last frontier where we glorify instinct alone.

• 16:02Dr. John Delony?

  Insanity though, right?

• 16:03Speaker 01

  Instinct alone, it is especially insane because again, you want to go to the doctor who has the best medical school. They wear that with a badge of pride.

• 16:12Dr. John Delony?

  Sure.

• 16:12Speaker 01

  And I don't know one investor anymore who'd invest in a CEO founder who said, I'm never going to need executive coaching.

• 16:19Dr. John Delony?

  I got this.

• 16:19Speaker 01

  I do it by instinct. You're like, I'm glad we established that this meeting is over. Thank you for saving me my time. And yet with parenting, there's this idea and it's put out in society, especially with moms, but anyone. Maternal instinct, I should be able to figure this out on my own. It shouldn't be this hard. I mean, you are one human raising a totally different human. There is nothing harder than that. And I think, I, I love a good metaphor to really drive this home. And so to me, most parents I know would say, there might be some things with my kids I want to do similarly to how my parents did it with me, but there's definitely a lot I want to do differently. Some people say, I want to do almost all of it differently. But if we think about that.

• 17:03Dr. John Delony?

  I don't like those people.

• 17:04Speaker 01

  Right? Yeah. And if you think about parenting as a language, it's like saying, I was raised in English and I want to speak to my kids in Mandarin. No amount of wanting to learn Mandarin. Is going to help you learn Mandarin if you're not learning and practicing Mandarin.

• 17:20Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 17:20Speaker 01

  If I said to my friend, I just feel like now that I'm a mom Mandarin is going to come naturally. I should be able to figure it out my own. They'd be like, yeah, that's just not how Mandarin works. Like you can learn it, but you will have to learn the skills and practice. And then in your worst moments, Becky, you are going to end up yelling in English. Like that's just what's going to happen. And I really do think good inside is like a language for parents where the only thing that comes naturally in parenting is how you were parented. And so if you want to do things differently, I do think loving our kids, a lot of these moments, those that deep love can come naturally. But yeah, handling a grocery store meltdown, knowing what to do when your kids ask you hard questions. But how does the baby get in the belly? And you're like, okay, okay, you're really asking me, okay, okay.

• 18:05Speaker 01

  Or lying to your face or being woken up at 2 a.m. for the ninth night in a row. I, I think you're right. Like that's not character. That's not love. That's skills and the best news about skills is you're not behind.

• 18:16Dr. John Delony?

  That's right.

• 18:16Speaker 01

  Oh, anyone can learn it at any time.

• 18:20Dr. John Delony?

  What do you, well, here's, I, tell me if I'm crazy. I get, so I'll get a call and it will be a dad or it'll be a wife. And they will say, or dad or mom, and they'll say, our sex life has fallen apart and we've been married 10 years. And then we talk and we talk and we talk and we talk. And then they'll say, oh, we have a five year old, a three year old and a one year old. And I'm pretty sure like my partner's pregnant. And I'll often just stop and say, hey, call me back in five years.

• 18:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:53Dr. John Delony?

  Like there's, there's going to be, there's going to be survival sex. There's going to be just gaps. You're going to have to learn how to communicate in other ways. You're gonna like, we don't have a picture.

• 19:05Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 19:05Dr. John Delony?

  None of us talked, what about what is it supposed to feel like?

• 19:07Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 19:08Dr. John Delony?

  And that I'm allowed to miss somebody or miss the old days and we're creating new, new days.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 19:15Dr. John Delony?

  But there's no skill. And how do we sit down and talk about, right? Now we have this chaotic world. What's, what's intimacy look like in this new world? What does laughter look like in this new world? What does getting away look like in this new world? Am I bananas?

• 19:28Speaker 01

  I think that what you're saying, and I said this recently to a live audience that who seemed to really resonate, is we have a better understanding of how kids learn how to swim than we do about anything about child development. Because if you think about, I don't know if you did swim lessons, I did swim lessons for my kids, you spend a lot of time and a lot of money, and it just takes a long time. Where imagine if you didn't understand the swim process, the first, second lesson, you know what you'd say? This isn't working. This isn't working. I'm just gonna pull my kid out of swim, or this is a bad teacher, or my kid's never gonna learn how to swim. We know that when your kid puts their face in the water and blows bubbles, by the way, you're still years from swimming, but we're like, yay! Right?

• 20:12Speaker 01

  Because you know to expect it. Whereas, what is it like to be partnered up and raising young kids? What's gonna change in my partnership? What is the energy shift going to look like? What is it like when my kid starts to hit, to know what are the skills they need to learn to stop hitting? But how long will it take between learning skills, practicing skills, and seeing it show up in the game? I was talking to Duke women's basketball coach, and it was interesting, she's like, you watch tape all the time, and you look at players' reads, and some players in certain moments, they have tough reads, so we have to change it, and you practice, and you practice, and you practice, and then in the game, it doesn't show up, and you practice, and you practice, and then one day, later than you want, you're like, oh!

• 20:52Dr. John Delony?

  There it is.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  There it is. But all of this actually has so much to do with expectation, because how we all end up feeling in any moment, isn't just a feeling. It's often the feeling, and how surprised we are by the feeling. And I always think if we can remove the surprise, feelings are still hard, but they're a lot less explosive. So if I know, a couple examples, I have a five-year-old, a three-year-old, a one-year-old, and I'm sitting being like, I don't have sex with my partner anymore. If I can say to myself after- I knew this stage was coming. By the way, still permission to feel sad, to feel lost. How else can we feel close? But, but the way it's going to feel, the level out of 10,

• 21:38Speaker 01

  is going to be totally different. If I understand why kids lie. My reaction to lying to my face is not going to be like, "Let's throw my kid a party." I'm not going to throw my kid a party for lying at me. But if I understand developmentally what's happening, my reaction's totally different. And so I think this is really a call in parenting. We need education. Like, we need school to some degree. Not in the ways of like homework and being yelled at by teachers, right? But the best part, education is power.

• 22:14Dr. John Delony?

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• 22:59Dr. John Delony?

  Good folks, real strength comes from opening up about what you're carrying and doing something about it so that you can be your best self for you and for everyone else in your life. If you're feeling the weight of the world, talk to somebody, anyone. A friend, a loved one, or yes, a therapist. I talk with a therapist weekly, and you might consider doing it too. If you're thinking about trying therapy, contact my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy, so it's affordable and convenient for your schedule. To get started, just fill out a short online survey to get matched with a licensed therapist. And if it's not the right fit, you can switch therapists at any time easily for no extra cost. Talk it out with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com/deloney

• 23:44Dr. John Delony?

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• 23:53Dr. John Delony?

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• 24:35Dr. John Delony?

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• 25:14Dr. John Delony?

  I want to talk about loneliness and parenting. Yeah. I've got to go back and find the study, but I remember sitting there stunned by it. There was an old, I think it was Native American proverb, but it may have been from somewhere else, that no woman should be left alone with a crying baby. It was just kind of a cultural ethos. That's madness. Yeah. And I got to thinking about the suburban neighborhood I grew up in Houston, where you have a kid, and you go home, and they put you in this box in your house, and you just stay there alone. And then you switch out, right? So my wife was teaching, she would teach classes at night and then I would just be with this kid who didn't want anything to do with me.

• 25:56Dr. John Delony?

  And all I felt when I couldn't, I remember just sitting there sobbing thinking, I can't get my kid to stop crying. What a loser. You know what I mean? What a loser. Not knowing that a six month old is a bundle of, it's a nervous system that's just out in the world, right? I couldn't, I could not get him to stop, but I didn't have anyone to tell that to.

• 26:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:16Dr. John Delony?

  And I just sort of sat on it and sat on it and sat on it. And then I thought, I can't do this. I remember when my wife said, hey, the bottles, she had pumped and the bottles were in the fridge. I didn't know you're supposed to warm them up. I remember giving my kid a bottle and he was shaking and I was like, oh, he loves this, right? And I didn't know, I didn't know.

• 26:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:34Dr. John Delony?

  I didn't even know what I didn't know.

• 26:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:36Dr. John Delony?

  But I knew over time, I sucked at this. I'm failing here. I'm just gonna go work a little bit more. That's how I can help my family the best. How do we talk about being lonely as, as parents?

• 26:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:47Dr. John Delony?

  Especially as young parents or teenage parents. Um, I don't know any parent that wants to feel out of control, yet you're stuck in your house by yourself and all you have is whatever nonsense is, is out there.

• 26:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I do think that aloneness is always the enemy.

• 27:03Dr. John Delony?

  Hmm.

• 27:03Speaker 01

  Right? Where, again, we think feelings give us a hard time or experiences give us a hard time and feelings, experiences, things that happen, those can definitely all be hard. But the thing that's hardest for humans is feeling alone in a hard experience. Feeling alone.

• 27:19Dr. John Delony?

  That's the definition of trauma, right?

• 27:20Speaker 01

  That is trauma. I, I think that's what trauma is. It's an event with high emotionality that's stored in aloneness. Now, obviously some events have higher potential for that, but yeah, you come home, you have this baby, nobody's taught you anything and worse, they've told you. Trust your instinct. You're like, well, my instinct might be to yell at a child, so I don't know.

• 27:43Dr. John Delony?

  And they tell you, this is magic. It's so great.

• 27:45Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 27:46Dr. John Delony?

  Everything's wonderful.

• 27:46Speaker 01

  So expectations are here, skills are here.

• 27:49Dr. John Delony?

  And reality's down.

• 27:50Speaker 01

  And reality's down there, where like when I see a new mom, especially, I'm always like, I really had a hard time in the beginning. And let me just tell you, the beginning was like 10 and a half months. And they're like, oh, I was like, yeah, there were more unenjoyable moments for me. I struggle with dependency. Like, a lot of people, if you love being around people who are independent, then the beginning stages of parenthood are like really hard, especially hard. And you're right, when you're then alone. I think what we have the tendency to do, especially when we're alone, is we interpret struggle as our fault.

• 28:26Dr. John Delony?

  Yes.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  And so then, it's not even the struggle you're responding to as much as the story that it's your fault, or that someone more, you know, better would do it differently, or that, again, it should be easier, or that you're not cut out to be a parent, or that how I feel in this moment is representative of how I'm going to feel every moment. We do all these grand things. We make it our fault, we make it global when we're alone.

• 28:50Dr. John Delony?

  And we make it forever.

• 28:51Speaker 01

  And we make it forever.

• 28:52Dr. John Delony?

  What's antidote to that?

• 28:54Speaker 01

  I mean, I think there's a bunch of antidotes for that. I just cannot overstate the importance of having more of an education for parents. And I don't mean, I love Instagram. I do. I love a 60 second clip. But that is a crumb for a parent, because you also can't even describe something with nuance. And so we all get these more extreme views of what it should be like. So I think education is one, because even if you're a little alone with a crying baby, but in your head, you've learned enough times, it is not my job to stop a baby's crying. That's not, that's actually not my job. That's not good for anyone. This is not a sign of failure. Babies cry. I'm going to support my baby with these words I've learned and practiced. That moment is going to be hard, but it won't spiral you into an abyss.

• 29:37Speaker 01

  So I think education is just one thing. I think another thing is having some type of community, your village. And even if that's online, it's because sometimes you're a new parent, you're in your house, you're like, I can't even really leave the house to get to this group. That is not one more sign that you're a bad parent. That is a sign you're in an incredibly difficult stage.

• 30:00Speaker 01

  And I do think one of the things, big picture, when we're struggling is we can either say, "This struggle is a sign of something that's my fault," or "This struggle is a sign of something I need." And when I need something, that's not some, again, signal that I'm weak. Knowing what you need is like a really important sign of strength. And so maybe I do need to log on somewhere and have a safe talk. Maybe there is a Zoom group. Maybe there is a friend I can text, "Hey, were the first couple of months, both incredibly exhausting and mind-numbing to you at the same time?" Most people who are honest are like, "That's exactly what it was. Exhausting and difficult and mind-numbing, all at the same moment."

• 30:39Dr. John Delony?

  That, I remember my wife saying, she went and found three. You have to go find them, but she went and almost, not almost ceremonially, but went and said like, "Hey, y'all are gonna be my three ride or dies during this. I'm gonna text you. It might be at 3 a.m. If you're up, would you text me back?" And it was just those, "Hey, this is happening." And getting two other moms were like, "Exactly, exactly. It's supposed to be like that." And they go, "It still sucks, but, okay, good."

• 31:05Speaker 01

  That's right, because you're removing, if you picture it, you're removing aloneness. And once I know I'm not alone, meaning, once I know there's not something wrong with me for feeling this way, it becomes lighter. It doesn't become easy. There's no moment of like balloons and rainbows, like when you remove aloneness. But the difference between hard and impossible is big.

• 31:25Dr. John Delony?

  Gosh, that's so good. The difference between, say that one more time.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  The difference between hard and impossible is big. And I think a lot of moments in parenting-

• 31:35Dr. John Delony?

  That's so huge.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  Is just they're hard. And that's what I think is so important for parents to know. The best it gets at certain moments is hard. You don't go from impossible to joyful. That is not an arc anybody has ever had. No, and ironically, the better we get at managing the hard-

• 31:55Speaker 01

  The less often hard becomes impossible and then the more space there is for moments of joy and connectedness, right? But that actually all comes from how we learn to manage the heart because if not, the hard becomes impossible and crowds out everything. And I think what your wife spoke to, community, honesty, education, and just someone saying, you're not crazy.

• 32:16Dr. John Delony?

  You're not crazy.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  That's how it was for me too, or it wasn't like that for me, but that's okay. And it is like that for you and that doesn't mean anything about you.

• 32:23Dr. John Delony?

  This is a good time. You should probably go talk to somebody, right?

• 32:26Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 32:27Dr. John Delony?

  Or.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  Level up.

• 32:29Dr. John Delony?

  I remember taking a picture of a rash and just sending it to her text group and then being like, all of them wrote back like, normal, normal, normal. And I was like, oh God. Because you know, I was like, oh, my kid's got some rare, you know, whatever.

• 32:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:40Dr. John Delony?

  And it was just, okay, good.

• 32:41Speaker 01

  That's right. That's right.

• 32:42Dr. John Delony?

  So I want to take a left turn here.

• 32:45Speaker 01

  Great.

• 32:46Dr. John Delony?

  I want to talk to, hmm, let me say this. I'm just going to be as raw as I can with this.

• 32:53Speaker 01

  Great.

• 32:54Dr. John Delony?

  So here's what I'm hearing from dads.

• 32:56Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 32:57Dr. John Delony?

  Useless. They don't want me around. I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to ask anybody. I definitely don't want to do this like my dad did. And also this gnawing sense of this data just came out the other day that 25 to 35 year women have just passed men in earning potential. And like, I'm just redundant here. And what they're doing, because they can, because there's still society off ramps for men, they're just opting out. They're either leaving or they are leaving with a video game controller. They're leaving on the couch. Or they are deciding like what I did, I'll just work

• 33:41Dr. John Delony?

  90 hours. I can't help in any other way. I'll just put some money in the checking account and then I'll feel good.

• 33:45Speaker 01

  I mean, you're asking me this question at a really good time because I've been really obsessed with dads in the last kind of couple of months and really thinking about dads. And I'm also seeing other dads who are leaning in in a way that I haven't seen or read about in, you know, generations. And so I guess my number one thing I want to say to that is just dads really matter.

• 34:07Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  Dads really matter. And I think when we look at the world we all want to build, where people can be in healthy relationships, where you know that strength is actually so deeply connected to how you relate to what's going on inside you. So yes, being strong relates to how you're able to manage your feelings. And dads have, I think moms have a role to play there too. Dads have kind of really amazingly unique role to rewrite a different story for their sons and their daughters. And I think one of the things you're putting together, and I think a lot of dads struggle with this, is equating kind of knowing what to do with being important. Those are two very different things.

• 34:52Dr. John Delony?

  That took me a long time.

• 34:54Speaker 01

  That's right. And dads can even still have a really positive impact on their kids when they don't know what to do. And I think there's a way of naming this, like every, every parent. But if dads feel like, oh, I'm just in a way and I don't know what to do, something that's always helpful to say to a kid is, I'm not sure exactly what to say right now, but I want to tell you I'm here.

• 35:15Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 35:16Speaker 01

  I'm not sure what to do and I'm worried I'm gonna get it wrong, but I love you. You're a good kid. We're gonna get through this. Like, you can just put out there the first part, I don't know what to do. I'm not sure how to respond to this. I feel like there are words I would want to say and I don't have them right now. And I want to assure you, I'm here with you.

• 35:38Dr. John Delony?

  There's a guy I have high, high respect for and his kids are just extraordinary. And I asked, and he said, I just start taking them to breakfast once a week. So I started out with my son and it was boring, and then it was boring, and then it was boring, and then it was, hey dad. I think there's this girl.

• 35:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:52Dr. John Delony?

  But it was or hey, explain to me some deep theological.

• 35:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 35:55Dr. John Delony?

  It only came from presence and presence and presence.

• 35:57Speaker 01

  I think that's right. The input is more and longer than any of us in this efficiency oriented world that we live in would want it to be. You do get a lot of rejection from your kids and I think we take the bait.

• 36:12Dr. John Delony?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 36:13Speaker 01

  Way too often as if that's the whole truth when it if you actually reframe your kids pushback or I roll as they're trying to just figure out how much to take in from me and how close to be and they're young, so by the way, no adults do that terribly well either.

• 36:29Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  You know, but they're just kind of muddying through it. Right? And they're also kind of unconsciously testing out, how much can I trust my parent? How much can I trust my dad? Because I'm gonna say it wrong one time and I'm going to get overwhelmed. And before I even go to kind of the depth I'd want to have in the relationship, I need to know that I have a parent.

• 36:52Dr. John Delony?

  That's it.

• 36:52Speaker 01

  Who can take it. And so they do kind of test out, I don't want to go to breakfast with you. I have nothing to say to you. And again, if we can just think, do not take the bait. Right? And I think there's a way in which this has felt like weak. I can't let my kid get away with that. But I I often tell people, like, imagine Steph Curry or LeBron and and you see them with like a group of eight year olds or 16 year olds and they're like, Steph Curry, you're the worst shooter in basketball. And then you hear Steph Curry being like, you can't say that to me. You'd be like, Steph, like, get a hold of yourself. Like, that's like, you know what a sturdy person does? They don't respond because they know who they are and they don't need a 16 year old or an eight year old to prove it to themselves.

• 37:34Speaker 01

  They're secure enough that they can hear something about them that they know isn't true and they don't need to prove their own truth in the relationship. So I tell especially dads, like, channel your inner LeBron. Like, you would not want to see LeBron saying, you don't want to go to breakfast with me? You're like, LeBron, dude, like, come on, you're like NBA All-Star. Just like, take a deep breath, relax, you know?

• 37:57Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, but the next step is, we're going.

• 38:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:00Dr. John Delony?

  It's almost like the Good Will Hunting scene, like, we're having this, we're gonna sit here.

• 38:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 38:05Dr. John Delony?

  We don't have to say anything.

• 38:06Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 38:06Dr. John Delony?

  I'm gonna eat.

• 38:07Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 38:08Dr. John Delony?

  Um, so, this is me, like, taking the John-ism, and you tell me if this is right or wrong.

• 38:13Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 38:13Dr. John Delony?

  I often tell parents, and maybe I'm hitting the pin on them too hard, your nine-year-old doesn't get a vote in your emotional state. And, like, and that may be too far, but I want parents to practice. They don't get a vote, dude, they're nine. Like, we as a society don't let them drive or buy cigarettes, right? Because they're nine.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:33Dr. John Delony?

  And so, my nine-year-old can pop off all day long. I can sit down when the smoke is clear and talk about, that's disrespectful.

• 38:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 38:40Dr. John Delony?

  And, or, in our house, we have a values, like, this is who we are. And that way, I can point back and say, we all agreed, like, you're at the table, this is not who, how we talk to each other in this house.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:50Dr. John Delony?

  But I'm not, I'm not gonna outsource my feelings to my nine-year-old, or my fifteen-year-old. And it's hard.

• 38:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:57Dr. John Delony?

  Right? It's hard.

• 38:58Speaker 01

  Because then, if we're not outsourcing it, the reason it's hard is we actually have to do it for ourselves.

• 39:04Dr. John Delony?

  I've gotta do it for myself, that's right, that's right.

• 39:05Speaker 01

  You know, but it is true. And so, I, I don't mind you don't have a vote, I guess I'd put a tweak on it, just 'cause,

• 39:10Dr. John Delony?

  It's a little bit overdramatic.

• 39:12Speaker 01

  To me, I think, our kids, they feel our intention over our intervention.

• 39:17Dr. John Delony?

  Hmm.

• 39:18Speaker 01

  They feel our mindset, and they feel, are you looking at me, like, we're on the same team and you like me? Or, even though you're saying the same words, are you looking at me like I'm a nuisance, or like I'm difficult?

• 39:29Dr. John Delony?

  Are you looking at your phone while you're telling me that thing?

• 39:31Speaker 01

  That too, right? So I think, there's something to, and again, I think, everything at Good Inside, we always come back to these two things at once. I can validate my kid's reality, and my kid needs to know I'm not overtaken by it. That I have their long-term interest in mind, and I won't let their short-term protest get in my way of doing what I know is good for them. This is like a pilot saying we need to make an emergency landing, and you might be on a plane being like, oh, man, I have this meeting, I have this wedding, and maybe you think it's not that big of a deal, and you start protesting, then imagine your pilot saying, oh.

• 40:05Dr. John Delony?

  You're right.

• 40:06Speaker 01

  Actually, forget, we won't land.

• 40:07Dr. John Delony?

  We'll go through the storm. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Or like, um, I, I- Wanted you to say to me, it does stink.

• 40:12Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 40:13Speaker 01

  That you can't get to your wedding, but, but, but I also don't want you to change your mind. And so I think you're taking your kid to breakfast and they're like, I don't want to go with you. I'm just going to stay quiet the whole time. Validate something in there, just even if it's like, I get it, it's not what you want to do.

• 40:29Dr. John Delony?

  That's boring.

• 40:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I get it. I'm just like not high on your list of people to have interesting conversations with. I get it, you know? And we are going to go. And if you're quiet the whole time, that's how today's breakfast. But it's, it's important for me. Maybe not for you. It's important for me that we get good time together. Like, I just think as a kid, they're not going to gra- and then we think we're going to say these things. I think, John, this is the other part. We say these things like, it's important for me to get time together. You can just sit there, you know? Maybe that's how today's go- goes, but we're, we're going to go out for pancakes, whatever it is. We think our kid's going to look at us after and be like, Dad, you crushed that moment.

• 41:05Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 41:06Speaker 01

  No.

• 41:07Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 41:07Speaker 01

  Right? Or I set a boundary, you know? Oh no, there's no sleepover on a Wednesday. And I think my kid's going to say, that is reasonable. I do have a school tomorrow.

• 41:15Dr. John Delony?

  Good call, Dad.

• 41:15Speaker 01

  Good call. I love you, you're a sturdy leader. You know, like my kids have never said that to me. And so kids are allowed to protest. We still, as the leader of our home, just like the CEO of a company, you have to make good, long-term decisions, even when the people around you are focused on short-term ease and comfort.

• 41:35Dr. John Delony?

  That, that though impacts, we have a very unintentional culture. We're just getting to the next thing. And that's, that suggests if you bring a child into the world, you owe it to yourself and to your community and to your neighbors and to your kids. You have to start being intentional with your life.

• 41:58Speaker 01

  At least some, like I'm a realist, some percentage of the time, like I, I prioritize short-term ease too sometimes, right?

• 42:05Dr. John Delony?

  I always say like, I don't want to fall off the wagon, but sometimes I'll park it and climb off and roll around in the mud and then I'll get back on it, right?

• 42:11Speaker 01

  That's fine, right? Again, there's no perfection here. There's no parent, I know, definitely not me. It was like, I am always making long-term good decisions. No. A human, hello. But there is something to a little inventory of like, all right, let me look at this week. What is my, I always say at Good Inside, we're very long-term greedy in our parenting. Our kids are going to be 18 and over. They're going to be out of our house for so many more years. Then they're in our house, which also means for so many more years than they're locked into a relationship with us. They will choose whether they want to be in a relationship with us. And so these long-term decisions matter and we don't build strong relationships with our kids by saying yes to them all the time and giving into short-term stuff all the time because they end up resenting us. Why didn't you make good decisions?

• 42:55Speaker 01

  Why didn't you land the plane when you needed to?

• 42:57Dr. John Delony?

  I needed a parent, yeah.

• 42:58Speaker 01

  I needed a pilot. I didn't have my pilot license then. And so that stuff really does build a long-term relationship, but it won't lead to a short-term high five.

• 43:10Dr. John Delony?

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• 43:54Dr. John Delony?

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• 44:40Dr. John Delony?

  That's 20% off sitewide with code DELONY at organifi.com/Deloney.

• 44:47Dr. John Delony?

  You changed how I define the word guilt.

• 44:50Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 44:51Dr. John Delony?

  Talk me through that.

• 44:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 44:53Dr. John Delony?

  Because when you said it, I've been teaching on guilt for years. And when you said it, I was like, well, I was wrong on that one. So walk me through guilt.

• 45:00Speaker 01

  So this, to me, is like how so many of the different things I think about happen, where I just keep hearing these things from parents. I'm like, what does that mean? What do you really mean by that? And so something I hear, especially from moms, though it could be from dads, is,

• 45:12Speaker 01

  okay, I've put my kid to bed for 39 straight nights. I'm going out to dinner with my college girlfriend who's in town, but my kid's clinging to me and they're like, you have to put me down. And then they'll say to me, I feel so guilty. And then I don't go. Or I want to sleep in one weekend morning, but I feel like if I tell my partner, they're going to tell me how tired I am and then I'd feel too guilty. And I kept thinking, this is interesting because our emotions are information and our emotions have evolutionary purpose. So what are we doing that some emotion is getting in our way of doing something that's good for us? And that's when I realized I don't think people in those scenarios are talking about guilt at all. Because to me, what guilt is, it's a feeling we have when we act

• 45:56Speaker 01

  out of alignment with our values. And again, then that's important because even if it's uncomfortable.

• 46:02Dr. John Delony?

  It's an important feeling.

• 46:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, your body's like, I'm going to make you feel uncomfortable, not to send you into a spiral, but to get you to pause and ask yourself, well, why did I yell at the taxi driver? Why am I late to every meeting? If I can actually reflect on that, because guilt helps me reflect, then I can change. Amazing. But then I kept thinking, but going out to dinner here and there with a friend? I know that woman. That's in alignment with her values. Okay, and right, whatever the other, sleeping in one weekend morning? Like that person values rest, so what is this? And then what I realized is there are so many moments that we say, I feel guilty, that we're not talking about guilt.

• 46:46Speaker 01

  When we say, I'm too guilty to have dinner with a friend once in a while. I'm too guilty to sleep in and let my partner take care of the kids one weekend morning. I think what we're actually speaking to is our tendency. To notice other people's distress, my kids' distress that I'm leaving, my partner's, oh, but it's gonna be hard to take care of the kids alone. Two situations when there's distress. And I look at those feelings of distress and I'm kind of like, no, I'll take those from your body. I will put them into my body. And I will call it guilt, but it's not really guilt. It's just my tendency to take on other people's emotions and process their emotions for them.

• 47:29Dr. John Delony?

  And that, I have a Johnism. The thing, the tools you use to keep you safe as a kid will by and large destroy your adult relationships.

• 47:37Speaker 01

  One hun- I mean, that's right. Where everything we struggle with in adulthood was an adaptation in childhood. I think that form of guilt, it does everybody, like you're saying, a big injustice. Because number one, we have to start with a place of true compassion and I would say further appreciation. Anybody who's listening is like, I do that. Maybe I'm not guilty. Maybe I'm just taking in other people's emotions to start with. Hold on. I would say to myself, like, thank you, thank you for your years of service. Really, thank you for your years of service. That protected me. That was adaptive during all of my early years when I needed to figure out who I needed

• 48:22Speaker 01

  to be in my family of origin to get the most love and protection I could. And if taking care of other people's emotions was the way I did that, then like, boy, was I a crafty eight-year-old to figure that out.

• 48:34Dr. John Delony?

  Can I click on something?

• 48:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:41Dr. John Delony?

  So, peacekeeping is one. I found love by being sexually active a lot. I drank too much into drugs as a kid. I, I'm hearing more and more 35-year-olds looking at their 18-year-old self or their 16-year-old self with a lot of condemnation, or their 21-year-old self trying to survive. And-

• 49:07Dr. John Delony?

  So like, like saying I'm a people pleaser, that tends to have less cultural baggage than some of these other things.

• 49:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, let's, let's start with that.

• 49:14Dr. John Delony?

  Telling us, like, dude, like hug your 16 year old self. They're doing what they could to survive.

• 49:19Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 49:20Dr. John Delony?

  We don't let them, we don't let them buy beer. They were trying, they were doing what they had to do to survive.

• 49:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're talking about like, you know, being very sexually active. You could say, okay, well, what was, my body was seeking connection, closeness. In what ways was that allowed growing up?

• 49:35Dr. John Delony?

  That's right.

• 49:36Speaker 01

  If I was a, if I'm a man, like, was I a boy who could have gone to a parent saying, I'm having a hard time with math. I feel left out by my friends. Would I have been greeted with like a hug? I'm so glad you're talking to me about this. Or would I have been given?

• 49:51Dr. John Delony?

  Shut up, get out.

• 49:52Speaker 01

  Exactly. Or like even hearing that suggestion, or you like, you must not know my family to even ask that question. But that's evidence of, oh, so what did I do at age? Five, eight, 11, 16? To figure out how to be close to people, given that's a basic evolutionary need.

• 50:13Dr. John Delony?

  It's oxygen for a child.

• 50:14Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. And so, wow. I figured out that one avenue was like a lot of sex.

• 50:22Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, physical contact.

• 50:23Speaker 01

  Okay, well, even if that doesn't work for me now, I can still take a moment to understand its origin. And yes, have some appreciation for that kid part of me that was kind of thinking, okay, this avenue is closed off, this avenue is closed off. And instead of shutting down as a human being, I was like, wait, I found it. Reckless sex, okay? Like.

• 50:47Dr. John Delony?

  Be compassionate to that kid, yeah.

• 50:49Speaker 01

  And almost like appreciative. You can appreciate someone's attempt to protect you, totally separate from the impact that form of protection ended up having.

• 50:59Dr. John Delony?

  There you go. Yeah, if you sit with addicts in, or maybe rephrase it. If you see people who are struggling with addiction. It's like, how do you know? When you say like, alcohol works.

• 51:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 51:09Dr. John Delony?

  It's amazing.

• 51:09Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 51:10Dr. John Delony?

  It's amazing.

• 51:11Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 51:11Dr. John Delony?

  Right? Marijuana, it's amazing.

• 51:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:14Dr. John Delony?

  And over time, it may not be adaptive, right?

• 51:18Speaker 01

  That's exactly right.

• 51:19Dr. John Delony?

  And there's an exhale. But there's some, yeah, I love that idea of being compassionate and seeing where that behavior has behavior sounds so like, I'm your dad, but like, where that.

• 51:29Speaker 01

  Expression.

• 51:30Dr. John Delony?

  There you go. Like, as you're older, where is that still trying to? Where's my body still trying to take care of me in those ways? And where is it now maladaptive? It's not helpful.

• 51:38Speaker 01

  And I think this is, this goes directly to kind of this next generation. I feel so passionately about raising where if we teach kids that they're acting out behavior is not a sign of who they are, but it's a sign of what they need. That means they are going to be more and more likely to figure out other ways to get what they need that are more adaptive.

• 52:01Dr. John Delony?

  Yes.

• 52:01Speaker 01

  Right? And so even though we're talking about sex at age 16, this is actually the same as thinking about hitting. Okay, so my kid at age three is hitting not because they're a bad kid, not because they have some character deficit. It's because they're frustrated that their sister has their favorite truck and they don't yet have a skill to manage that frustration.

• 52:23Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 52:24Speaker 01

  Okay, so we can teach that. And then, by the way, anger is a healthy emotion. Anger tells us what we need.

• 52:31Dr. John Delony?

  Yes.

• 52:31Speaker 01

  I don't want anyone to ever lose touch with their anger because anger in that way is a sign that you still have some type of self-confidence, self-respect to think you deserve things. Now, learning how to manage anger.

• 52:41Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 52:41Speaker 01

  That comes to skills and curiosity. And I think as a culture, we've received such little curiosity and compassion in our early years for the source of our behavior that we almost think compassion is dangerous. Like someone's like, I'm going to be compassionate about this awful behavior. Like, whatever you've tried, I promise you, shame locks you into bad behavior way more than compassion does. Every time.

• 53:06Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's a great minister in our community that says, whatever you think your hate's doing, love will do better, I assure you. Right? And so you can hate this thing or you can say, come sit down. Yeah.

• 53:17Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 53:18Dr. John Delony?

  How do you, on the flip side of that? If we can look at childhood behaviors as often a kid saying, I don't have the skill set here or I'm expressing a need for something.

• 53:28Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 53:29Dr. John Delony?

  Was it like 65% of homes are single parent homes now?

• 53:35Dr. John Delony?

  What do you say to the parent that's working three jobs? And they see these behaviors in their kids. They know they're there. And they're between a rock and a hard place.

• 53:43Speaker 01

  Yes. I mean, the first thing I would say is probably no words at all. I just want to give that person a hug. And say, holy moly, you are managing more than is humanly possible.

• 53:52Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 53:53Speaker 01

  And again, the setup of childcare and of support for parenting is completely lacking.

• 53:59Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 54:00Speaker 01

  Right? And I think that's also one of the reasons we see declining birth rates. People are like, yeah, I don't.

• 54:04Dr. John Delony?

  I can't afford it, yeah.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know about this setup anymore, you know? Like, I'm starting to question it. The next thing I would say to that parent is there are probably ways to think smaller. I think when we're struggling with our kids, we think really big. And it can get away from us in terms of, okay, it's hard for you to connect with your kid. And then parents are like, I'm gonna take them to the amusement park on Saturday. And then I'm like in traffic and I'm spending so much money and I'm resentful. I'm gonna be without my phone for three hours. I'd be like, look, with all due respect, you are rarely without your phone for five minutes. Let's just start with five minutes, right? And I'm not saying that because I don't believe in someone. I'm actually saying that because I do believe in someone. So let's just set ourselves up. So that single parent is working three jobs. Like, can you say to your kid today?

• 54:49Speaker 01

  I just want to tell you, you're a good kid and I love you. I want to tell you I'm sorry for the moments I yell. That's a sign of my exhaustion, not a sign of anything about you. I just did an intervention in 10 seconds. I can kind of say, okay, did one small shift today. And then I could do another small shift tomorrow. And that's kind of as good as it gets.

• 55:08Dr. John Delony?

  Can we do three minutes? Okay, cool.

• 55:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:11Dr. John Delony?

  All right, I'm gonna, I wanna run through some rapid fires here, okay?

• 55:14Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 55:17Dr. John Delony?

  What do you tell the mother or father who doesn't want to play with their kids? Because it's boring.

• 55:22Speaker 01

  I would say number one. It's okay.

• 55:24Dr. John Delony?

  Can we say that out loud?

• 55:25Speaker 01

  Yes. No, it's okay. That play feels boring. It feels boring for a couple of reasons. Our life is full of so much dopamine now and so much instant gratification. Where play is slow and without dopamine. So that's number one. Number two, a lot of people find play very hard with their kids because nobody played with them. And so if you realize, oh, I'm doing something that generationally has never been done before, of course, it's going to feel deeply uncomfortable. Set yourself up for something small. It's two minutes of Play-Doh. It's a five-minute game. And then I think those increments probably over time feel less boring because again, you've worked up for them.

• 56:06Dr. John Delony?

  And we've had to get creative in our house. We have a wrestling mat that we roll out that the, that especially, I thought my son liked this. My daughter loves it, but, but yeah, yeah. Okay, finding things that can also, okay, awesome. Is my kid manipulating me? They're good at home or they're terrible at home, but they're good out there. So I know they can, so it must be. And I guess the meta question here is projecting adult ways of being and navigating social situations onto a child.

• 56:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I don't think manipulating is a helpful framework for kids or adults. I, I actually think the single biggest thing we can change as a parent isn't a strategy. It isn't a script. It's our mindset. As soon as you think about your kid as manipulating you, you're in enemy territory with each other. And then we're going to intervene like they're our enemy, which means they're going to get defensive. They're going to feel disconnected, power struggle, screaming, et cetera. I would say the same thing as an adult. As soon as you think my friend is manipulating me, enemy territory. It's just, it's actually just not useful, whether or not it's true, is irrelevant. I think instead you can say, what would make my kid behave one way at school and another at home? What would make me behave one way at work and then give it to my husband? Is it because I'm manipulating him?

• 57:21Speaker 01

  I think someone there would say, oh, probably not. Maybe you're, again, you're exhausted. Maybe he's actually your safe person. Maybe he has to establish what is okay and what's not okay while still not kind of demonizing you. And I think that's, that's what I would shift.

• 57:36Dr. John Delony?

  Is it true that kids by and large do it works contextually?

• 57:40Speaker 01

  You know what? I don't think it's even that intentional where.

• 57:44Dr. John Delony?

  I was wrong on that one.

• 57:45Speaker 01

  I just think our kids are trying to figure out how to kind of operate in the world and how to build skills and they usually see us as like the safest container, which doesn't make bad behavior okay, but it does mean it's a clue.

• 58:00Dr. John Delony?

  Contextually, yeah.

• 58:01Speaker 01

  Exactly to what's going on. And if we see it that way, we can almost oddly become like almost weirdly excited when our kids have a hard moment because if you're oriented by impact instead of just by short-term ease, then you know when your kid lies to you or when your kid says, I'm not going to bed, that you actually have an opportunity to build skills for anxiety, to build skills for shame. These are things that are going to happen over and over. And so you see these hard moments not as a sign your kid is manipulating you, but actually as kind of like a high-impact opportunity.

• 58:40Dr. John Delony?

  Like a pathway back to them. Dude, I love that. Okay, last one.

• 58:43Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 58:44Dr. John Delony?

  What's the, oh man, we could have talked about kids and technology. We'll have to do a whole nother show on that. Um, two more, real quick. Sleepovers, yea or nay?

• 58:54Speaker 01

  I'm not, I think it depends on the kid and depends on the family. So I'm not yea or nay as like a rigid rule. I think it's great in general for kids to have opportunities to have risk, to be uncomfortable, to consolidate skills away from you. That's the only time kids do consolidate skills. Whether that happens in a sleepover or it happens in another type of environment is really based on the family and what feels right to them.

• 59:20Dr. John Delony?

  That's okay. Great answer. Last one. Where are you most misunderstood?

• 59:26Speaker 01

  I think that we get kind of lumped into snowflake parenting, soft, quote, gentle. And I think like we started with, this idea of sturdiness really shows the difference. But as a world, as a society, we are getting increasingly bad at holding two seemingly oppositional truths at the same time. I actually think this is one of the things Good Inside can bring to the world. It's like if we raise a generation of kids who know, I can have a relationship with my feelings and I can be firm and boundaried and assertive. Actually, those things work best together.

• 1:00:06Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  We are showing that you can kind of have both at once. And that's the model of parenting where I think we can be misunderstood. But I feel so passionately about continuing to bang the table and say, yes, parents, you're an authority. You set limits. You make key decisions. You set boundaries. And while you do that, you can stay connected to your kid. You can have both at the same time.

• 1:00:30Dr. John Delony?

  I'm not even gonna say anything after that.

• 1:00:32Speaker 01

  There we go.

• 1:00:32Dr. John Delony?

  Appreciate it. Awesome.

• 1:00:36Dr. John Delony?

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• 1:01:18Dr. John Delony?

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• 1:01:56Dr. John Delony?

  All right, that was my conversation with the amazing Becky Kennedy. And listen, we've linked to everything, the Good Inside app, which is incredible. If you're a parent and you're just looking for what to do next when you get all kinds of wild things, it's a great app. We've linked to that. We've also linked to her book, Good Inside, and all the other stuff we talked about. Thank you so much for joining us. Check her out on social media. She's a great follow. And I'll see you soon. Be kind. Right now, it feels like that's pretty much all we got left. Be kind to each other and find somebody to serve. I love you guys. Stay in school, don't do drugs. Bye.