Stop Trying to Make Your Kid Feel Good About Themselves

Dr. Becky says: maybe confidence isn’t what we think it is.

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

• 0:00Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I remember seeing two parents basically back to back in my private practice, and it forever changed how I thought about confidence. Get this, both came in with the same worry. My kid isn't confident. But let's keep going. The first parent had a young kid. Oh, at a birthday party and all the other kids are running around the gymnastics mat. And Dr. Becky, my daughter knows all the other kids. They're all having fun. My kid is clinging to me. Why can't my kid be more confident? Next session, teenager. Something had happened on a group text. Goal found out and all the kids on the group text, the ones doing the nasty texting and the ones on the text who didn't say anything got suspended.

• 0:42Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  This kid, the son of the parents I was seeing, was the one who didn't say anything, still got suspended. Parents asked me, my kid should know that's wrong. It was awful, Dr. Becky. Why can't my kid see what other kids are doing, but be confident to know that they can do something differently? Hold on a second. Sessions back to back where parents want their kid to be confident. But in the first session, the parents are defining confidence as going with the crowd, just joining in faster. And in the second session, the parents are defining confidence as the ability to notice what the crowd is doing and act in a different way. How can this be?

• 1:27Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I think we think about confidence when our kid is young as jumping in, being the first to do something, or yeah, doing what the majority of the other kids are doing. But then later on, we define confidence as our ability to trust ourself even in the face of other people acting differently. So what's going on here? What are we actually talking about when we talk about confidence? I'm going to answer that in this episode. This episode is in partnership with Carter's. Before I get into what confidence actually means, I want to tell you why we're partnering with this 161-year-old brand. Carter has been making kids clothes for almost two centuries. And over that amazingly long time, they've been dedicated to growing kids' confidence.

• 2:10Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  They understand that protecting kids' sense of self is one of the most important jobs of parenting. Carter surveyed parents and asked this. When it comes to helping your kid trust themselves instead of relying on everyone else's approval, what guidance would be most helpful? The clear winner, help my kid trust their own preferences and their own choices. Starting now, we're doing something we've never done before. We are teaming up with Carter's and we are launching the Childhood Confidence Project. Over the next year, we're going to examine what makes confidence in our kids diminish as they get older and help parents prepare to overcome those moments.

• 2:52Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  As part of this project, I developed a brand new confidence program to help you do exactly this. And thanks to Carter's, it is now completely free. Stick around to the end of the episode and I'm going to tell you how to access it. Okay, if you want to raise a confident kid, I want to tell you something that might surprise you. I don't think our goal should be to make our kids feel good about themselves. I know that sounds weird. Stay with me. I promise it'll make sense because I think this is actually part of the problem. If I define confidence as feeling good about myself, then as a parent, I'm going to try to make my kid feel good, feel happy, feel comfortable in any situation. I fix, I reassure. But actually, I think that's part of the problem.

• 3:37Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Because your kid and my kid, they're not always going to feel good about themselves. They'll fail. They won't get invited. They're going to walk into rooms where they don't know anyone and they're hopefully going to try a lot of things they're bad at. And if confidence is about feeling good, I think we end up building something really fragile. Great, my kid has confidence when they're in a situation where they feel good about themselves. Don't we all? Here's how I think about confidence. Confidence isn't always feeling good about yourself. Confidence is trusting yourself even when you don't. I guess another way to say that is confidence is feeling like it's okay to be you in the

• 4:20Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  widest range of situations, not the narrowest. Example, I didn't make the team. Still okay being me. I'm the worst one here. Still okay being me. Everyone else wants to do something and I don't. Still okay being me. I'm nervous. I try and I fail. All of those situations, unenjoyable, but I'm still okay being me. We want to help kids widen the range of situations where kids feel okay being themselves and where they can trust themselves. I can't think about a more important time to build this type of confidence because we're raising our kids in a different world.

• 5:03Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  It's a world that makes it easier than ever to make hard things go away. I actually think it's never been easier to make our kids' lives easier, and that might be our biggest parenting problem. Our kid has a problem with the teacher? Let's email. Our kid is struggling in class? We find a tutor right away in that instant. My kid is bored, they're having a hard time entertaining themselves? Here's a screen. None of these things are inherently wrong. That's not what I'm saying. It's that the accumulation of all of these things leads to something we generally don't intend. When something feels hard, my kid learns something has to change out there because I have not learned to tolerate hard things in here.

• 5:48Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  That's not confidence. Confidence is built through something very different. Something feels hard in the world and I can stay with it. I can figure out, what do I feel? What do I need? What do I want to do next? And I trust myself through it and I get there because I had support through those types of situations when I was younger, not solutions, support. Every time we make a hard thing disappear, we are unfortunately taking away an opportunity for our kid to learn something that I think is really important. Hard doesn't mean I can't do it. Hard doesn't mean something has gone wrong. And hard doesn't mean something is wrong with me.

• 6:31Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  This gets to the core of what we're trying to build, not a kid who feels good in every situation, a kid who knows it's still okay to be them in more and more types of situations, when they're struggling, when they're disappointed, when they're not the best, and when things don't go their way. Every time we rush to change a situation so our kid can feel good about themselves, we risk narrowing the range of situations in which our kids can trust themselves. What we actually want to do is widen that range because that is confidence. So here's what I want to do. Because I talk a good game to you, but I'm a parent. I have my natural instincts too.

• 7:12Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And all the things we're about to talk about, the three things that accidentally work against confidence, let me be the first to say, I've done all these things and I'll do them again. And then I'll listen to this episode and try to shift in a different direction. You ready? Here's the first thing we do. We change the feeling. Our kid says, I'm so bad at soccer. No, we're not. But like, maybe they are. Okay, I'm just saying, maybe they are, or at least maybe it's true. They're not so great at soccer. And here's a kind of provocative question. Why are we so scared of letting our kids experience themselves as not good at something?

• 7:52Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Accidentally, we're teaching something else, that you need to be good at something to feel good about yourself. I actually don't want my kid to think that they're good at everything. First of all, it's not realistic, but it's also fragile. I want my kid to learn, I can be pretty bad at soccer and still feel pretty okay about who I am. That's confidence. Second thing we do, we change the outcome. Let's say your kid isn't invited to the sleepover with the other three kids. We think, you know what? I'm going to text that mom and explain that my kid is also friends with those kids and I'm going to get my kid invited.

• 8:34Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Maybe I hear that the teacher had a difficult moment with my kid. Before I do anything else, I email the teacher for a phone call. Maybe my kid doesn't like group classes. Oh, I don't like group classes, but I love soccer. And so I just set up privates. Now, all of these things come from love and none of these things are inherently bad. Just hear me out before we jump to that conclusion. Over time, changing the outcome is the kind of love that narrows the range of situations your kid can deal with. That doesn't mean never intervene. Of course, sometimes you have to email the teacher or text the parent or sign your kid up for a private something, of course.

• 9:15Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  But we're talking about that overall pattern when we change the outcome as a reflex. So something I try to do, and I'm going to do it right now with you, is I just try to catch my reflexes and ask myself, hold on, in general, am I preparing the road for my kid? Or am I preparing my kid for the road? You know what I know about my kid when they're out of my house? They're not going to be invited to something. They're going to have a professor in college who they have a hard moment with. They're going to be in a group situation and they're going to think, oh, I wish I could just do this by myself.

• 9:57Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And the truth is, if I want them to be prepared, to be resilient in those situations, I can't rescue them from the parallel situation when they're young. If I do, I shouldn't be shocked when I get a call from my 21-year-old asking me to email his college professor. And I have a feeling neither of us want that.

• 10:34Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Confidence comes from a track record. Things don't always go my way. And I know how to struggle through that and figure it out. Not this, watch, not things don't go my way. And when they don't, I figure out how to turn it around. So something does go my way. I mean, maybe we can do that a percentage of the time, but most of life is this didn't go my way. And I just kind of survive it. And then the pain of that moment becomes smaller over time. That's it. You can't lecture a kid into knowing that. Hey, not everything's going to go your way. Okay, so when you're in college, when you're 30, lectures don't land. Experiences need to accumulate.

• 11:18Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Experiences are what teach kids the lessons they need. The track record they accumulate to trust themselves. They have to go through things going a different way than they imagined. And not being rescued by it to see themselves as capable of dealing with it. Look at me. Still here. Didn't like that. Wasn't fun at all. But wow. You know what I just realized through that? I'm capable of handling hard things.

• 11:51Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  That is the track record that builds confidence. Okay, the third thing that we do that can work against our kids' confidence is we make the outside louder than the inside. Stay with me on this. It's more important than ever. There's some examples. Did you win? Well, what did your friends get on the test? Oh, did your friends like it? You're the best player on the team. You know that? Now, to be very clear, none of those things have to be completely stricken from your parenting vocabulary. Please don't leave the podcast saying, Dr. Becky said, I can't tell my daughter she's the best on the team. So I'm never going to say that again. Please do not reduce this idea to that one example. That's not what I'm saying. It's not about one question or compliment.

• 12:36Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  It's the cumulative orientation. Does my kid in general look to the outside world? To determine if they're good enough? Or has my kid learned to look inside at things that live in them? Grades? What friends say? Likes on an Instagram post? Your follower to following ratio? Coaches, parents, beauty, achievement? All of these are things I call outside stuff. Now, the outside stuff gets loud. We can't ignore that. It's not a problem to care about grades or to care about what your friends think.

• 13:21Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  We all care about those things. The problem is when our kids learn, look to the outside only. To figure out how I'm doing on the inside. Confidence is our ability to sure be aware of the outside environment and take that in without completely outsourcing your sense of self to things that are external to you. In some ways, it's the gap between how much of myself worth do I define from others?

• 13:52Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And how much can I just access within myself? When it's just me? Okay, so how do you action on this idea of building their inside sense of self? Well, it's so easy to ask about all the outside stuff. What was your grade on that test? Amazing job. You got an A. Again, I'm allowed to do that. But watch what happens when I ask this question. Hey, tell me about your studying for this test. It seems like you did something that really worked. Watch the difference between, hey, you scored two goals in your game. And what part of the game are you proudest of?

• 14:29Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I don't know what my kid's going to say, but think about the gaze. Two goals outside. What part was I proud of? My kid gets something profound. Hold on. My parent is interested in my assessment? What part was I proudest of? I'm literally building the circuit inside them. Okay. How do we bring this all together? We're going to try not to change the feeling as often. Try not to change the outcome. Try not to make the outside louder than the inside. What is one thing we can do today?

• 15:04Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  One of the first things to play around with in your home is just noticing your urge to make something better. To make your kid feel good when they're not feeling so good. Maybe you want to tell them they're really good at soccer. You want to fix that sleepover. You want to reassure them that everyone actually does like them. They just weren't invited. Before you do anything, just ask yourself. What am I trying to change right now? Such a good question. My kid is upset. Before I say anything, am I looking to change something? Am I looking to change how my kid feels? Am I looking to change what happened? Am I trying to give them something on the outside that I think will make them feel better on the inside? Am I trying to change something? And then?

• 15:48Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  What could it look like to help my kid know? They can be okay being them right here too. Maybe when they say, I'm not good at soccer, instead of convincing them that they're good, you just say, what happened at soccer practice today? Tell me. Hear a little bit more of the story. Maybe when they say they weren't invited to the sleepover, you say, oh.

• 16:15Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And just look at your kid like you're ready to hear more. But then you say to yourself, stop talking, stop talking, stop.

• 16:23Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Maybe when my kid says, I'm scared I'm not going to make the team. Instead of saying, of course, you're going to make it. You just say, oh, you really want to make it. I get that. And if you want, you could add, look, I obviously don't know what's going to happen, but what I do know is no matter what, you're the same awesome kid. You can handle it and we'll get through it together.

• 16:46Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Big picture. You don't have to make the feelings go away. Not if you want to raise a confident kid. You don't have to guarantee the outcome. Not if you want to raise a confident kid. And you don't have to convince your kid to feel differently about themselves. Not if you want a confident kid.

• 17:03Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You're trying to help your kid have one more experience of this is hard. And it's still okay to be me when I'm feeling this right here. Because that is how we build through confidence. Now, if you're listening to this and thinking, okay, but then what? Because then my kid is going to have a reaction to that. And then something else is going to be hard that you didn't cover 100%. That's real life. And it's why I teamed up with Carter's to make my entire confidence program free for all parents for the next six months. I really believe this is what kids need right now. I'm so proud to put this out into the world. Because our kids are growing up in a world with so many quick fixes, so much immediate gratification

• 17:48Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  and more outside noise than ever. We can't really make that world less complicated right away. But I believe we can help parents have tools to help kids become more confident and capable within it. That's why Carter's and I wanted to make these tools available to every parent for free. The program knows you're a busy parent. And so it's meant to be done only a few minutes at a time because I know you're strapped for time and might only be able to watch something or read something when you're hiding in the bathroom. And then something else I'm excited about is when you complete the confidence program, you'll also get three free months of good inside. Access to everything in our app. Because confidence is so important. And let's be real, it's just one part of raising kids.

• 18:33Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  There's anxiety and meltdowns and rudeness and power struggles and sibling issues and sleep. And I don't know, a thousand other things that keep you up at night. And I really mean it. If it's happening in your home, we cover it and we cover it really well. Let's end the way we always do.

• 18:51Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Place your feet on the ground and place a hand on your heart. And let's remind ourselves. Even as we struggle on the outside, we remain good inside.

• 19:06Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  All right. Let's go build some confidence in our kids and probably in ourselves along the way. See you soon.