Why Your Kid’s Behavior Feels So Big

Dr. Lindsay C. Gibson has helped millions of readers understand the lasting impact of emotionally immature parents. In this conversation, she joins Dr. Becky to explore the other side of the equation: how we raise emotionally mature kids.

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

• 0:00Dr. Becky Kennedy?

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• 0:43Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You know that moment as a parent when your kid does something objectively minor, but super annoying, like asks you the same question for the fifth time, or they spill something right after you poured it again? And you have a reaction and you tell yourself, well, it was annoying, but you also kind of know there was something else going on for me. I had a pretty big reaction to this situation. And part of you might be thinking, that just escalated really quickly. And then later, things are calm, and you have this thought, like, why did that get so big? And maybe you have actually what I think is a beautiful thought. What's going on inside me?

• 1:28Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I think so many of us go into parenting assuming the hardest part is going to be managing my kid's behavior. And then pretty quickly, we realize the hardest part is managing my own behavior about my kid's behavior. And this is what we're going to be talking about today. Emotional maturity. What does that really mean in real life? And how it's not the same as being calm or patient all the time? And how actually, it's all about these tiny everyday moments? And then actually, what we do or do not do after? Dr. Lindsay Gibson has spent years helping people understand their relationships to their own emotionally immature parents. I just said her name again.

• 2:10Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I know you're excited because you probably read her popular book about being an adult child of an emotionally immature parent. And I'm having her here now to talk about how to raise emotionally mature kids. I'm Dr. Becky, and this is Good Inside. I'm so glad you're here.

• 2:31Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Dr. Gibson, you have spent so much of your career addressing kind of adult children of emotionally immature parents. I just want to start by asking you, like, what made you shift focus at this point to raising emotionally mature kids?

• 2:48Speaker 01

  That's a great question, because it wasn't something that I had on my radar when I started doing the work on the adult children part, of course. But it just became more and more apparent to me that a lot of the people that were coming to see me had concerns about their parenting and whether or not they were going to be able to be good parents to their children. I mean, they were working on their issues from their past with their emotionally immature parents, and they had concerns about how to be a good parent. So I ended up doing a lot of parent coaching with them, and then it sort of segued into this.

• 3:28Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You know, one thing that comes to mind as you're talking is, you know, and I was just talking to some of my friends about this, is our kids all the time come to us and they tell us about a tricky situation with us. They're like, I didn't like that you went out to dinner last night, and I had homework, and I wanted you to be there, right? And I do think there's this fork in the road, right? Where, number one, do I see that as, oh, my goodness, that feels like a dagger to me. So all I'm doing is like defending myself. I kind of even forgot my kid is a protagonist in the story. Now I'm just like, I'm just trying to manage my own guilt, my own anger. What are you talking about? I've been home for 45 nights in a row. This is the one night, whatever it is, I'm so overwhelmed by our

• 4:08Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  emotion. Or am I able to see this as kind of like a window into my kid and information, and probably even a larger discussion than just one night, right? And I, when you were talking about emotional immaturity, I kept thinking about that first road, like, all roads lead back to me.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  Yes, and that's such a great example because you said the phrase, "a window into your child," okay? The emotionally immature person is not looking for any window into anybody. They are so consumed with whatever it is that's going on with them emotionally because, you know, they've kind of got one foot on a banana peel emotionally speaking. They're not well-regulated. They, their self-esteem is very vulnerable and easily threatened. So they're always looking at, "Are you making me feel better about myself? And can I count on you to keep me emotionally stable when I need you to?" And that extends to their kids too, unfortunately.

• 5:13Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  So then if their kid's upset, it's seen the light of a little, like, "Who are you to rock my emotional instability? My kid's not even really, um, like a person. They're almost like an object in my world."

• 5:26Speaker 01

  There are stimulus. There are stimulus that they're reacting to. And the, you know, the really sad thing about it is that they don't, they don't have any choice about that. And then they don't have the awareness or the self-reflection to wonder why their kid got worse in their behavior rather than better. So it's a self-perpetuating, you know, spiral downward sometimes.

• 5:51Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Okay, so I could talk to you about this forever. We're gonna have to do that one, that version. First book topic over here, but I'm gonna, you know, restrain myself. Okay. Emotional maturity. What, what does that, what does that mean? To be emotionally mature? Tell us.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, we've all met these people too, fortunately, because they're out there. And they're people that they come into a situation, they start dealing with the people or the facts or whatever it is, and things start falling into order and things start making sense with people who are integrated like this inside.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  And they also can ask themselves that all important question. Is there anything that I have done or I am doing that's making the situation worse? And then they can change course because they have flexible, complex minds that are not all black and white or good and bad, but can reflect sort of the, the complexity of reality, which makes them a true grown up.

• 6:53Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And you know, one of the things I think about a lot, and I think it's in power of what you're saying is our ability, and I want to teach our kids this ability, but even our ability as a parent to separate kind of my core identity from any given moment or behavior, right? Because I think what you're saying to reflect on ourselves as an adult, am I bringing something to this equation? Wait, what's going on for me about this? Whoa, my kid's whining a lot. That's definitely annoying, but my reaction's pretty big. What is that about? I have to be able to say like, this is who I am as a person and here is a moment, like that moment, that reaction, that interaction doesn't fully define me in, in every, every single time. Is that right?

• 7:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, well said. Yes, absolutely.

• 7:35Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  We conjure up this picture, this emotionally mature person, but I know one of the things you write about is you meet an emotionally mature, let's just say 40 year old and you can tell with some of those people, oh, you like being around them. Like they feel like you said, very sturdy. That didn't start at 39, right?

• 7:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:52Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  That didn't start the year before. So let's get into some of the how, right? That's your book, How To, How To Raise An Emotionally Mature Child. And certainly anybody listening, you're right. Like maybe you have these moments with a three year old or a six year old, but you have a whole lot of moments where you're going to be thinking your kid is emotionally mature, which they are because they're six or they're nine, right? Um, but what, what are some of the pillars?

• 8:13Speaker 01

  One of the things that comes first is they're learning how to attach, how to relate, how to love, how to be with other people in a way that gives them a sense of belonging. That's, you know, babyhood, uh, originally.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  And then they're also always building up an internal model of reality. Like they're building a template, a map, a map of the territory. Like, how does this world work? As if they were, you know, newcomers to the planet, which is exactly what they are. They have to build all of this stuff inside themselves. So they have a model that helps them to recognize and think about what's going on in the outside world. So we want to make sure that we help our child out with that by sort of explaining how things work.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  And we want them to be able to express and after a while, identify their emotions. So that their emotional life is something that they're very familiar with, very comfortable with. They begin to know the words for emotions and can express them. You know, later in childhood, they begin to differentiate fine points of emotion. Like I'm irritated or I'm frustrated as opposed to I'm mad. So there's a subtlety and a complexity that comes along with that. But they have to learn about their emotions. Otherwise their emotions become their master.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  And their emotions are supposed to be our advisors. So we want to help them with that.

• 10:07Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I want to wait, pause for a second just because I think what you said is so important. I think you and I agree. Can't get rid of the emotions, just can't. That's not an option. So we're going to shelf that one for now. So we tried for, we tried for generations, right?

• 10:23Speaker 01

  Has it been successful? Yes, we did. We tried for generations.

• 10:27Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Right? No one's done it yet. So I don't know if kids ever really logic their way through emotions. Like what's going to happen if I do this? I, I don't know. I don't even know if a lot of, maybe some adults do, but it. I guess what I think about is whether your emotion is like the driver of your car, or whether they're like a passenger, because if frustration is in the driver's seat, well frustration is just going to act itself out. But when it's in the passenger seat, like you said, which I agree with, it can be this advisor, "Hold on, I'm frustrated."

• 10:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love that analogy because that's, that's really what it is. The thinking I'm talking about is split second. It's right brain, something that the, the sort of the emotional side of our brain can calculate in a split second, situational awareness.

• 11:20Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  One thing I notice with parents all the time, and honestly with myself too, is how often we all just feel depleted. I mean, parenting us, a lot of us, we're making decisions all day, navigating big feelings and keeping everything moving. It's draining. I want to tell you something I do that both helps me stay hydrated, but honestly also feels like a form of self-care. I always have an Element drink mix in my bag. Instead of just carrying snacks for my kids, I go to this when it's 3pm, 4pm, 8am, and I'm tired, and it's something for me that helps me feel taken care of and honestly makes me feel better. Element is a zero sugar electrolyte drink mix that helps support hydration without the sugar and artificial ingredients you'll find in so many sports drinks. It is truly

• 12:05Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  part of my daily routine and it makes a difference. If you want to try it, Element is offering a free eight count sample pack of their most popular flavors with any purchase. Just go to drinkelement.com/goodinside. I don't know about you, but by the time September rolls around, I am ready for cozy season. That's when I start thinking about Thanksgiving plans and travel that allows me to spend quality time with my family. I'm thinking board games, changing leaves, maybe even a living room with a fireplace where we can read our books together. Maybe you're the kind of family that loves an adventure and wants a cabin in the mountains somewhere. Or maybe you're dreading the end of summer and need to look forward to staying at a home on the beach with a view of the ocean. Or maybe you love to cook, so you want to stay in a home with your dream kitchen.

• 12:49Dr. Becky Kennedy?

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• 13:32Dr. Becky Kennedy?

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• 14:15Dr. Becky Kennedy?

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• 14:30Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And so for the parent who's thinking, oh, but my kid already did push his siblings. So what do I do? What do I do in that situation? Or what do I do in the next come moment? It's not like emotional maturity is coming overnight, but how do we get back to that path?

• 14:45Speaker 01

  To the path of helping them with their emotional maturation?

• 14:48Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah, exactly. It's like, okay, the hitting happened, the pushing happened. Like, what do I do next? Dr. Gibson, I want to raise an emotionally mature child. I think I've got some work to do, but what are some of the steps that can help?

• 15:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, typically what would happen with a parent who was aware of this is that the parent would intervene. The parent would come in and say, hey, what's going on here? Okay, that that is letting the child know, I notice when things like this happen. That's the first thing. I'm listening to you. I'm watching over your little brother. Uh, I'm watching over you and I'm, I'm concerned and I'm interested in what just happened. So maybe I hear from them and then it becomes a, uh, and, and you've, you've done this so beautifully in your work, Becky, really. Um, it becomes an opportunity for the parent to talk to the

• 15:43Speaker 01

  older child about what happened and how they felt about it.

• 15:48Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 15:49Speaker 01

  And talk about, um, how they think their little brother felt. Um, and also to ask them, you know, do you think you could have done something differently with this? Because now your little brother is really upset. He's crying. And then maybe they, maybe they say, no, he pushed me and they don't want to talk about it. But you can come back to it later if the child becomes defensive and doesn't want to talk about it. Just, just to brainstorm. Yeah. What do you do when, when somebody does something like that to you?

• 16:23Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah. So question for you. I know you know me well enough to know I don't believe this, but I think with the parent is like, is that, is that permissive? Like, is that going to lead to emotional immaturity? My kid just pushed the sibling and now later I'm saying like, what was going on for you and what could you have done differently? Like, that's not how I was raised. So how do you, how do you think about that?

• 16:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, I think parents feel a tremendous amount of pressure to do everything right. And, you know, that's not how it works. It, it's not how any of us learn. We all learn by repetition and we all learn best. I mean, if you want the kind of learning that, uh, is integrated into your, like your morals, moral code or your, your interpersonal relationships, you want something that you kind of understand and fall back on, that kind of learning takes repetition and it takes understanding. So, you know, bad news is that

• 17:24Speaker 01

  The best parenting mantra that I know is repeat, repeat, repeat, because they're not going to get it the first time. And if you come on like gangbusters in a very emotionally stimulating or overwhelming way, they're going to learn at a very deep level. This is below the conscious level, that at times, things don't feel very safe with you. That you get so upset that they know they better not upset you further. What great modeling for adult life, right?

• 18:03Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You know, the other thing I think a lot about with parents is we all have these hard moments. Our kid's hitting, our kid lies to us, they slam the door. You're the worst mom ever. We never do anything in this family. And you're like, I just took you to Six Flags, like, you know? Um, and then we have this hard moment, we survive it. And then there's all these quiet moments in between, right? Where I feel like so many parents feel so much pressure to get it right and like build this emotional maturity in the hard moments. But I'm curious your opinion on the hard moments versus, you know, the quiet moments, the things that you can do when, you know, you're actually just kind of chilling together and it's not a peak situation.

• 18:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, if you think about, um, I like to use examples from adult relationships too, because there really isn't that much difference. Um, and in any kind of long-term committed relationship, uh, or I mean, it could even be between roommates.

• 19:06Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:06Speaker 01

  But there are moments of what we might call peaceful coexistence. And those are some of the sweetest, most connected, safe feeling times in our relationship with somebody. These are the quiet times where we feel so safe with the other person that we're not needing to check in with them or monitor them. We're just able to be ourselves with them. So when you're doing that, being comfortable with each other, maybe you're each doing your own thing. That's one of the times when you're building that connection.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  The second thing I would say about it is that whenever you get a chance to make eye contact with your kid. And that sort of resonance gets to occur between your right brain and their right brain. And there's a kind of a feeling of connection that you get me, I get you. We're both seeing each other. That there's nothing big or special about that in terms of it being a, you know, an eventful moment.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  But it lets the child know and it reminds you that we're here to make that kind of connection with each other. That's what feeds us. That's what puts the the gas back in the tank. That's what fills us up and makes us feel really good inside. It's, I mean, we want to give them all these other opportunities that have to do with, you know, developing their minds and developing their skills, of course. Want to socialize them, all that stuff. But if we're not aware that they're really real inside, that they have a subjective inner world, just like we do. That they feel things just as deeply and as painfully as we do.

• 21:13Speaker 01

  If we don't realize that, then we don't help our children learn about this very deep human side of themselves and they don't learn how to handle it well.

• 21:24Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah, and I think what you're saying, which is so powerful, is kids have a whole real internal life. And at the same time, because they're kids and they're forming their sense of self and their circuitry in relationship with us. If we don't approach them like that's true, they won't end up feeling like it's true. And that's so much around emotional immaturity, right?

• 21:46Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Yes, because the way that that becomes true, that you have an inner world and an inner self that you can call upon to become resilient. And how important is that in success? But you have something to fall back on within yourself. That comes from your relatedness to the important people in your life. So it's not, it's not the cherry on top. It is the ice cream. I mean, this is where, where everything happens is in the recognition of what's going on inside that kid.

• 22:26Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And let's walk through an example, because I also want to show parents that when you recognize your kid has a whole internal world. I know, Lindsay, I speak for both of us in saying it's not like we'd say, oh, because they have an inner world, just let them scream and hit and do all the things. No, right? That's, that's a different thing. So let's take an example where you've been with your kid, you even had a nice evening, and now it's time for your kid to brush their teeth. You know, you're going to read them book and put them to bed. And there's just massive resistance, massive protest, not going to my room. Let's start with the mindset where you're not really thinking about the fact that your kid has an inner world. What do you think if we play that out? How is a parent going to respond under that mindset?

• 23:07Speaker 01

  Yes, well, this is something that I think is hard to remember under those conditions, because we get reactive. And our emotional maturity, ourselves as adults, goes down when we are stressed, tired, or sick. Okay, we slide right down the continuum into emotionally immature reactions whenever those three things happen. So at the end of the day, when the child doesn't want to go to bed, believe me, we are not at our best either. Okay, we just want to solve the problem, get them in bed and, you know, go watch television or whatever we're going to do that evening.

• 23:47Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yep.

• 23:47Speaker 01

  So.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  It's a bit of an acquired skill to get in the frame of mind of treating every unpleasant situation as something that is a signal or a communication of their internal world. In other words, the behavior for a child is the way they communicate. They can't say, oh, mother, father, I'm experiencing separation anxiety after this long day and it's hard for me to have a sense of safety when I lie down in my dark room. I mean, they can't do that.

• 24:30Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I mean, let's be honest. I think about a friend going on a work trip whose partner tends to like, start to give her a hard time before she leaves, after she leaves, and he's not even completely emotionally immature. Us adults don't always say, hey, I'm experiencing separation anxiety. We act it out sometimes, too.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  Oh, completely. It is very human.

• 24:50Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yes. So for the parent listening who would love one or two concrete things to do, what can a parent do today to say, I did something. I am doing something today that I know is building toward emotional maturity.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  It would, it would be basically to be able to say to yourself, I resisted the impulse to lose it. Because we all experience the impulse to lose it when we're tired or stressed. And it's the easiest thing in the world to do. It gives us a little power rush. We feel like we have been very effective as a parent. We feel like we have just shown ourselves that we can handle this in an authoritative way and we feel good about that. But we won't feel good about it later on when the child is fussy the next day

• 25:46Speaker 01

  or they wake up with a nightmare or they come and climb in bed at 3 o'clock in the morning. Things have costs. And so to have that attitude of I'm going to handle this as best I can. And there's some times when you're not going to be proud of how you react. But if I handle this with the eye toward, I want the best possible long range outcome.

• 26:13Speaker 01

  Then see what comes to you in that moment about dealing with the child in a way that calms them down, or you work a deal with them, or you get them to look forward to something in the morning that you'll get to do, or we do a massage, or we do another song, or will they agree to that, and then will they go to bed? So you're doing a bit of a collaborative negotiation. That's not giving your power away. That's making sure that the outcome is going to be less bad than it would have been if you had lost it on them. That's all.

• 26:59Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I love this image of thinking about your kid's annoying, difficult, less-than-ideal behavior as a window into their internal world. Now, I want to say, this does not mean we're permitting the behavior. Being curious about what's going on under bad behavior is simply a foundation to be able to intervene effectively. Like, if I had a habit of dropping my cellphone all the time, and it cracking, and you heard me say, "I wonder what's going on for me? I wonder why I keep doing that?" I don't think you'd say, "Becky, you are really permitting this whole dropping cellphone thing." You'd probably just say, "Yeah, of course, you have to figure out why, so you can change it." So that's what I want to think about right now with you.

• 27:42Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And I want you, right now, in this instant, to think about a behavior in your kid that is driving you nuts, or that is ongoing. Maybe it's hitting, maybe it's stealing, maybe it's lying to your face, maybe it's the bedtime protest, maybe it's, "I'm not going to wash my body in the bath," whatever it is. And the first thing I want to do is I want us to say something together. I want you to put your hand on your heart and say, "I have a good kid. I have a good kid having a hard time. I have a good kid who..." And then say the behavior. "I have a good kid who's in a hitting stage. I have a good kid who won't wash their body in the bath. I have a good kid who's lying to my face."

• 28:26Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And after we've set the stage around that, I just want you to ask yourself, with generosity...

• 28:33Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I wonder what's going on for my kid? And I want you to really think about that behavior in your mind as a window into kind of the house that is your child. So there's the lying, and you're almost going to try to look through it. And no one can do that with clarity. There's no perfect answer, but it's the practice of trying to look through that actually builds all the emotional maturity we're talking about. So it's not about getting the right answer. It's actually just about the process of wondering. And here's my little cheat sheet. When I really can't figure it out, and I'm kind of still in, "Oh, my kid's so annoying" mode, I just say to myself, "Why would I do that thing? Why would I be a kid who hits on a playdate?

• 29:16Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Why would I lie to my parent at age eight? Why would I not wash my body in a bath? What's my most generous interpretation of why?" Now, there's obviously so much we can do after. There's then, "Okay, well, what do I do with that?" But it's actually a lot just to do that exercise. A lot, meaning really powerful. And so I hope that gave you a tiny shift, or maybe a new perspective. And I hope you know even going through that process is really big in terms of building emotional maturity. And I also feel like I want to make sure you know that if you're looking for next steps, and if you're looking for parents having honest, real, human, not AI, conversations about how we're raising kids, and how we raise emotionally mature kids, and how we

• 30:01Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  still hold kids accountable for their behavior when we're also looking at their behavior as a window into their eternal life, that's what we do in the Good Inside community and the Good Inside app. And if you haven't already checked it out, just go to goodinside.com to learn more. It's always good to know about the resources that are available when you might want to take that next step. Okay, let's end the way we always do. Place your feet on the ground, place a hand on your heart, and let's remind ourselves, even as we struggle on the outside, we remain good inside. I'll see you soon.