Encore: Why you should aim to be a “good enough” parent, with Tim Cavell, PhD, and Lauren Quetsch, PhD

Being a parent can be tough these days. Dozens of books and articles offer competing answers to questions from how to help siblings get along to how much screen time is too much, and every decision you make feels important. It's no wonder that many parents feel tired, stressed, and unsure of whether they're doing a good job. Tim Cavell, PhD, and Lauren Quetsch, PhD, authors of Good Enough Parenting: A Six-Point Plan for a Stronger Relationship With Your Child, talk about what “good enough parenting” means and why it’s a worthy goal, why nurturing the parent-child relationship is parents’ most important job, why science backs the old adage “choose your battles wisely,” and how to develop loving, supportive relationships with your kids that will stand the test of time. 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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:31Kim Mills?

  Speaking of psychology is taking a summer break, so we're rerunning some of our favorite episodes from the past. In 2023, I talked to psychologists Tim Cavell and Lauren Quech about why parenting expectations seem higher than ever and how parents can focus on what really matters most. I hope you enjoy this episode from the archives. We'll be back with new episodes beginning August 26. Raising children can be particularly challenging these days. There are dozens of books and articles offering competing answers to nearly every parenting question you might have, from how to get your baby to sleep, to how to help siblings get along, to how much screen time is too much, to whether let your tween attend a sleepover.

• 1:15Kim Mills?

  Meanwhile, every parenting decision you make, even the most mundane ones, can feel consequential. It's no wonder that many parents feel tired, stressed and unsure of whether they're doing a good job. In a recent Pew Research Center survey, 47% of mothers and 34% of fathers said they felt that parenting was tiring most or all of the time, and 1/3 of mothers and 1/4 of fathers felt it was stressful all or most of the time. So as a parent, how do you know which of your choices matter most and where to focus your limited parenting energy? What's the right balance between keeping kids safe and giving them freedom? How should you respond when your kids try your patience with whining, sibling fights

• 1:59Kim Mills?

  or teenage sarcasm? How should your parenting change as your kids get older? And most important, how can you develop a loving, supportive relationship with your children that will stand the test of time and lead to a happy, well-adjusted family? Welcome to Speaking of Psychology, the flagship podcast of the American Psychological Association that examines the links between psychological science and everyday life. I'm Kim Mills.

• 2:27Kim Mills?

  We have two guests today. They are the authors of a new book published by the American Psychological Association called Good Enough Parenting: A Six-Point Plan for a Stronger Relationship with Your Child. First is Dr. Tim Cavell, a professor in the Department of Psychological Science at the University of Arkansas and a practicing psychologist. Dr. Cavell's research focuses on parent and mentor-based interventions for children at risk, including programs for aggressive children and chronically bullied children. Dr. Cavell has also published more than 60 research articles and chapters, as well as several books for clinicians who work with at-risk kids and their families. He's also the father of three children who are now in their 20s and 30s. Our second guest today is Dr. Lauren Quech, also a professor in the Department of Psychological

• 3:12Kim Mills?

  Science at the University of Arkansas and a licensed clinical psychologist. Her work focuses on children with disruptive behavior and autism spectrum disorder, and in particular, helping parents of children with autism build stronger parent-child relationships. She also works with community mental health agencies in an effort to help families get access to evidence-based treatments faster. Dr. Quech is the mother of four young children. Dr. Cavell's and Dr. Quech's book aims to help the parents of children from toddlers to teens learn practical, science-based strategies to build healthy and lasting parent-child relationships. Thank you both for joining me today.

• 3:50Speaker 03

  Thank you for having me.

• 3:52Speaker 04

  Good to be here.

• 3:53Kim Mills?

  Let's start with the title of the book and why you chose it. What does it mean to be a good enough parent and why should parents aim for good enough as opposed to spectacular or out of this world?

• 4:05Speaker 04

  We must concede that the term was borrowed. The phrase good enough mother was coined back in the 50s by a psychologist named Donald Winnicott. And the phrase good enough parenting has been around for quite a while. In fact, you could probably find two or three books with similar titles that might invoke the term good enough or good enough parenting. It's interesting, if you look at the history of Winnicott's use of the term, because he thought that the perfect parent was less effective than the good enough parent. And what he meant by that was that the good enough parent doesn't always meet every child's need. In fact, he used the term fail. Sometimes they fail to meet their child's every need.

• 4:50Speaker 04

  And in so doing, children learn to cope on their own. And we think that's an important message for today's parent, because there's tons of information. To me, it feels like a weight to try to be a good parent. It seems that if the bar has been set to perfect or at least quote unquote effective, and we wanted to write a book that describes in a more holistic fashion what it means to be a parent that's going to do what matters most and not wear yourself out in the process or not become a hyper-hover parent as well.

• 5:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think when we were talking about this and trying to decide on this title as well, you know, I have four young kids. And one of the things that I've been involved in, I have, there's a group of a few mothers that graduated from my PhD program, and we all sort of lean on each other for parenting advice, if you will. And what ends up happening, what I've realized is a lot of what can be consumed about parenting is sets the bar really high to the point of if I do something wrong, what does that mean for my child? My child is going to fail in life.

• 6:06Speaker 03

  And this, I've noticed, has created a really high amount of anxiety for new parents in this generation. And I think it has really helped to talk to them and sort of bounce ideas off of each other, but also recognize that some of the things that we say are, you know, really important, like, you know, how does my kid look today? Or maybe, did I not handle this situation exactly right? Comes down to, well, sometimes it's okay to just be good enough. Because if we worry too much about all of the fine details, kind of like what Tim was talking about, is we miss the larger picture of what it means to be a parent and what

• 6:50Speaker 03

  it means to run a family. And so good enough, I think, is often now the advice that parents need more than ever because they're told so many things about you have to be this way and a perfect parent looks like this, and it's just too much. It's too much to manage.

• 7:09Speaker 04

  Can I add to that? Because I agree wholeheartedly with what Lauren said. And I think our book aims for a sweet spot between, you know, there's one kind of parenting book that's a rather folksy, homespun approach to parenting. It's more of a literary work than a reflection of the science of parenting. Then there are those books that are drawn tightly from the science of parenting, but those can get rather prescriptive and exacting. And we were, our book, I think, is aimed sort of between the two at a sweet spot, which has let's build from, let's draw from the science of parenting, but let's render it

• 7:52Speaker 04

  in a way that's user-friendly, that's parent-friendly, that's digestible, and that distills the key findings down to an essential whole, to what matters most.

• 8:06Kim Mills?

  Does the good enough approach, in effect, also extend to the kids? Because, you know, there's so much pressure on our children these days to be absolutely perfect and spectacular. So if you're a good enough parent, well, maybe you can be a good enough son or daughter as well.

• 8:21Speaker 03

  Absolutely. I think sometimes people don't realize that when you set standards really high for yourself or for your child, like, I want my child to be the greatest athlete there ever was, right? And now I know what it means. That means they need to be involved in three sports that take up all their time and the AP classes. They need to be involved in all of those because my child's going to be the best. And what ends up happening is the child gets burnt out, the parent can get burnt out. And when you base your family and your relationship off of those accomplishments, rather than

• 9:01Speaker 03

  the relationship you actually have with one another, you lose, you lose something in there. And that can cause more distress, rather than just focusing on, again, what matters most, the good enough.

• 9:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, and I think it's been way overstated that our parenting shapes our children and their personality and their future. There are a lot of other factors besides parenting practices that shape who children become. And more recent research speaks loudly to that. And as a parent, my tendency is to adopt a posture of discovery. Let me discover who my children will become. And let me be ready to love and accept them when I discover who they are. But the notion that I'm exercising my preferences and shaping who they are and who they become is both mythical and dangerous.

• 10:00Speaker 04

  So it's an interesting posture to adopt, but I think it's a healthy one. Let me learn who my child is. Let me learn who my child will become. And let me practice accepting who that child is and conveying a message of love and belonging. That's a different way to go about the task of parenting.

• 10:18Kim Mills?

  And I think that that segues into the question that I had, where you write about the most important job that parents have is to build a relationship with their children. And I think that might surprise some people, maybe who don't think that they need to build a relationship because they have a relationship. But what do you mean? What is the special approach that you recommend that might not be immediately evident to a harried mother or father?

• 10:43Speaker 03

  So I believe that we've got core components that we highlight within this book. There are three aspects that we believe are really important for a relationship between a parent and a child. And then we also have some components that we feel are sort of the foundations of those things, too. So largely, when we're thinking about a relationship, which Tim alluded to already previously, was this posture of acceptance. So when we think about

• 11:16Speaker 03

  Our relationship with our child, we're really saying, I see you and I accept who you are for who you are, right? So I have four little children and I may parent them pretty similarly. You know, they're all close in age together as well and they are different. They're different people. They have different interests. They have different inclinations. They have different temperaments. And so part of being a parent then is for saying, I see that you are who you are and I'm okay with that. And that can look in many different ways. It can be very outward in the way that we express that.

• 11:57Speaker 03

  And it can also be more silent in the way that we express that too. So sometimes not saying anything and rather than correcting your child all the time. The second component of that then is containing. So thinking about our job as a parent is also to recognize that we, you know, children are impulsive sometimes. We still have to welcome them into the, the culture and society in which we live and, and tell them what is and is not acceptable. And so our practices of containment sort of help us do that. And then the last component within that is being a leader and your leadership within the family.

• 12:39Speaker 03

  So outwardly expressing what it means to be a good person, talking about what our values are within a family and then sharing that with our children too. There's more to that and I'll let Tim take over.

• 12:56Speaker 04

  Yeah. I think if we zoom back a little bit, I think there needs to be an appreciation that we have cast, we being mainly professionals like Lauren and I, have tended to cast parenting as something set apart from relationships. There are some parenting advices, like an itemized list of if your child does X, you should do Y. If your child has this problem or engages in this behavior and this is how you should respond, without appreciating the context of the relationship in which those events occur. You know, depending on how strong or strained the relationship is, you might want to do very different things because at the end of the day, it's the relationship that will

• 13:41Speaker 04

  move your child toward being a good, healthy citizen. And I tend to say it this way, Kim, if there was some farcical choice I had to make between two surrogate parents, one who was very good at relationships in his or her life and one who knew a lot about parenting, I would choose the one who was good at relationships. Okay? Because that's what it is. But too often, I think because of people like us throwing out so much advice, folks become parents and they move into this mode where they sort of jettison what they think about in terms of how to make a relationship work. None of the relationships we have should involve being victimized, taken advantage of, being abused.

• 14:23Speaker 04

  None of the relationships we have should involve not trying to convey a message of acceptance to the people we love and care about. And none of the relationships we have should involve abandoning what our core values are, how we carry ourselves. So you want to bring all those relationship components to the parent-child relationship, not just because it's a parent-child relationship, because that's what it means to have a healthy relationship.

• 14:49Kim Mills?

  Yeah. At the beginning of the book, you ask parents to think about their parenting goals, which are not the same as the goals that they might have for their children's future. What do you mean when you talk about parenting goals? How should parents set them and how can they stick to them?

• 15:05Speaker 04

  That's a great question. We describe parenting goals as the goals parents have for guiding their parenting behavior, but it's seldom a topic of discussion. What are your parenting goals? Again, we tend to think of it in terms of what we want for our children downstream. But if you are a parent, a working parent, you go home that evening, you have some goals in mind as a parent. Oftentimes they're sort of hidden and maybe embedded in automatic reactions to children. Things become sort of mindless and routine and we may not be forward-thinking or conscious about what are we trying to do in these interactions I have with my child? And if there's value in having a relationship where children feel accepted, they are periodically

• 15:50Speaker 04

  contained, in other words, there's a message of this you cannot do, and the parent is carrying himself or herself in a way that espouses good values, then, then those are great goals to guide parenting behavior. Now, will you know the outcome immediately in terms of your children's functioning? No, it's, it's like a plan. It takes time for that to unfold. So the parents, the goals for parenting behavior are more proximal to what we do in any given day or situation.

• 16:20Speaker 03

  And to add on that too, when we act automatically, we may be doing ourselves harm in that relationship. And so thinking about our goal as just having a stronger relationship with our child rather than worrying about who they're going to be or are they the smartest kid in the class? Are they the best athlete? Are they the best dressed? Are they going to be, you know, X, Y, and Z? That may snap in as an automatic goal that you're not thinking about where you're snarky with your kid or you're telling them what they need to be doing. And that sort of forces your hand sometimes to say, how hard am I going to push if my

• 17:05Speaker 03

  kid isn't doing what I want them to do right now? I may be pushing an agenda I'm not even aware of consciously at the expense of the relationship that I have with my child. And so if my goal is, maybe I'm, I'm struggling with the relationship with my child right now. So if my goal, if I'm conscious about, I care about my child feeling loved and wanting them to love me back too. Obviously you can't make your child do anything in that way. You can't force them to love you. And yet if you have that goal of, I want us to be stronger together and you're more thoughtful about it, that can change how you act in a moment.

• 17:47Speaker 03

  And so cleaning up the floor or addressing the tone in, in which they spoke back to you may seem like that's the most important thing if we're thinking automatically in that moment. But if we say, my relationship is the most important, our relationship together is the most important, then maybe you let some of those things go and that actually ends up building that relationship stronger.

• 18:09Speaker 04

  Yeah. It's being intentional, deliberate and explicit with why you're doing what you're doing as a parent, as opposed to reacting out of some hidden emotional goal like I'm frustrated or I'm tired or out of some preference for, for, to live vicariously through your child. So if the, and we offer to parents that, you know, useful goals to keep in mind are conveying a message of acceptance, conveying a message of containment that there are some things you cannot do, and then conveying a message of what our family values, what we believe in and hold dear.

• 18:50Kim Mills?

  So let me pick up from, from what you've just said, because you're talking about containment rather than discipline. And in the book you offer a rule of thumb, you call it the 80/20 rule. What is that and how does that work?

• 19:03Speaker 04

  So we, we make the provocative point that effective discipline is selective discipline. Okay? Now, there's a lot of science on inept, what Jerry Patterson and colleagues at Oregon Social Learning Center used to call inept discipline with children who were, whose behavior was disruptive and defiant. And the pattern that was observed in these parents was, was of two sorts, either being quite harsh and overly punitive or being quite lax and permissive. Okay? Not unlike, you know, Balmroon's distinction. So, and it makes sense if you're a parent who's having trouble controlling your child's

• 19:47Speaker 04

  behavior, then you might wax and wane between being permissive and harsh, harsh and permissive. And so it can be countered by having clarity about, well, what are the things that matter most? What are the things that you want to be consistent on in terms of, of being a disciplinarian? And what's things do you let go? Sometimes it's said in the parenting literature, Kim, as choose your battles wisely. Right? It's, it's a very common phrase. It's a bit unfortunate that the word battle is in there, but nonetheless, the, the point about choosing wisely is, is well, well-founded. But it's not often talked about, like, well, what does that mean? You know, choose your battle wisely?

• 20:32Speaker 04

  Well, we think that the, the science of parenting points us in a, in a direction there in developmental psychology. One of the behaviors that is most problematic for children's development is their use of coercion, which is a very, a broad term used to define various forms of aggression or antagonistic or threatening behavior. Okay? Children who learn to use coercion, aggression and other sorts of antagonistic behavior are at risk for a lot of problems downstream. School dropout, delinquency, substance use, things like that.

• 21:09Speaker 04

  And so clearly, this is a category that matters most, that matters a lot. So if you're looking for where to put your time and energy, it makes sense to put your time and energy on limiting your child's use of coercion and aggression. Now, there are a whole host of other things that matter little to children's development. I think we give an example in the book of bacon eating. You know, what if your daughter was eating bacon, only bacon, and it persisted? And you said, well, you gotta eat something else, and that's all she ate. So at what point does bacon eating rise to a significant problem? It might take a while before that's a significant problem, or nose picking, or whatever.

• 21:52Speaker 04

  There's a lot of things that we, as parents, can prefer that our children not do, that we find maybe disgusting, or unsightly, or that it might be annoying. But that's very different than saying, this behavior, if repeated, has developmental significance. There are not many of those to pay attention to, but the ones that are, you really want to pay attention to. And here's the kicker. If you're going after, let's say hypothetically, 20 different behaviors, only two of which matter, and you're going to be spreading thin your efforts to discipline and contain, and likely fail. And so you actually dilute your authority.

• 22:36Speaker 04

  You dilute the degree to which children see you as a person of authority, because you're not being effective, and because you're trying to do too much. Okay? And so you want to preserve your efforts at containment for things that matter most. We actually, some of my research, looked at children's beliefs about whether parents and teachers can contain them if there's a conflict in goals. We had a measure, and one of the items was something like, you want to go play outside. Your mom says you can't go play outside. Can she make you stay inside? So it's an effort to get at, do children believe that adults are in charge?

• 23:18Speaker 04

  Well, lo and behold, most kids say, yes, they're in charge. But for the kids who doubt that, for the kids who have a low sense of containment, they had high levels of problem behavior, regardless of how well parents discipline. So if children are operating from a belief that I can outwit you, you know, do a turnaround, and I can work around you, if they doubt your position of authority, that's not good. And so you want to protect and preserve your position of authority through the use of selective discipline. The other win that comes from that is that you reduce the number of occasions where the interactions are emotionally negative, because discipline can often involve negative emotionality, unpleasant encounters.

• 24:01Speaker 04

  So if you reduce the occasions where you're trying to discipline your child, to contain your child, where there's negative emotions, then guess what happens? Your relationship is more positive than negative. And again, there's pretty consistent research that shows that an 80%, or about four to one ratio, of positive or neutral exchanges to negative exchanges signals a satisfying, stable relationship. If you're a parent who's at 50%, and half the time it's negative, half the time it's positive, that's not good. Okay? And so the goal would be to kind of use your gut as a barometer. How is my relationship with my child going?

• 24:42Speaker 04

  Am I experiencing at least 80% or close to it of my interactions as neutral or positive?

• 24:49Speaker 03

  And neutral's the key part of that.

• 24:51Speaker 04

  Yeah. Or is it like a coin flip? Like, I never know when we're going to be back in the relationship red.

• 24:57Speaker 03

  Right. And that was beautifully said, Tim. And I think often, when we give that figure, you know, it's gone from, it can be four to one, right? That these things are happening as well. But I think people freak out, because they say, how am I supposed to, you know, in a society, in American society, where we're like, you gotta be happy, and that's a sign of things working well, right? I think when we start providing the context of, well, you know, most of the time, things should be happy, then I think that also sets up unrealistic expectations. So the important component of that is neutral. Neutral or positive, not, and so that is in direct contrast with negative.

• 25:41Speaker 03

  So if you're noticing that the most of the time, or even half of the time, you're getting into spats, or your child is getting frustrated with you and angry with you, then that is usually a problem. But if it's neutral, neutral can be, my kid just whined at me when I gave them something, right? We can ignore that. The idea is, what do we focus on, and what do we care about? And so Tim also was talking about, you know, when there's coercion, it could be lying, stealing, things that do lead to those problem behaviors later on, and are more concerning, as we've seen.

• 26:24Speaker 03

  Those are the things that we call, you know, you have to get your butt off the couch for, right? Those are the things we don't ignore. Those are the things we have to stand up, and we have to deal with that frustrating confrontation potentially. For young kids, it's, you know, they throw tantrums, they get really angry, I know that all too well. And recognizing those things are important. And some things just aren't worth the time or the energy, because it does sacrifice that relationship that you have with your child. So do I like that my child rolled their eyes at me, or, you know, used a whiny voice, or I just cooked dinner, and now, ugh, mom, that's gross?

• 27:09Speaker 03

  Get that a lot. Sometimes it's not worth fighting about, right? You let it go, you let it slide, and it's to the benefit of the relationship because of that. And an additional component to that is, you know, when you have a child that is really well behaving, right? So they're not lying, they're not getting into physical altercations with people, you can focus on some of that smaller stuff. You know, if your kid listens to you, I don't know, young kids, on average, will listen six out of 10 times, really, really little kids, right? That's pretty good, if they're listening six out of 10 times.

• 27:53Speaker 03

  And often, when kids come in, that I've seen, that have behavior problems, we're seeing zero out of 10 times, two out of 10 times, right? And if you've got kids that are really pretty compliant, then you can, you know, you can start enforcing some things that maybe other parents that have a more difficult relationship with their child cannot. So, hey, I told you, you know, every time you leave a room, turn off the lights. Or, we have this rule where you put your shoes by the front door. Okay, if your kid is a generally happy kid, and your relationship is not continuously strained, and they're not beating other kids up and lying, then those are the things you can focus on.

• 28:36Speaker 03

  But if you've got a kid that you're having a really hard relationship with, and they are lying, they are getting into a lot of fights, there's a lot of verbal issues going on where they're screaming at you, those types of enforcement, those little things, are what we should ignore. So it's a tiered system, and we talk about that more in the book, too.

• 28:59Kim Mills?

  I think that you talk about mindful and mindless parenting, and I wanted to talk about the differences between the two, because I think that some of what you're talking about requires a level of mindfulness. But mindless parenting also has a role, and I think, as you say, it's not because the parent is unplugged or inept. But what are some examples of the two, and how can parents use those techniques to their advantage?

• 29:24Speaker 04

  So we don't use the word mindless to mean that someone's being stupid or unwise. It's meant to imply a mental state in which you're operating on automatic, in an overlearned, automatic way. So you're not deliberate and conscious about what you're doing. Mindful parenting, on the other hand, involves a much more conscious, deliberate, effortful decision about what you're going to do. We can't operate that way 24/7. It's impossible, whether it's a parent or anyone. But you can move into that mode at times. The danger is not appreciating that some of your parenting is rather mindless, automatic,

• 30:09Speaker 04

  and overlearned. And so if you keep finding yourself stuck in the same old dynamic of getting crossways with your child, and you're both angry, and frustrated, and sad, and hurt, then you might want to consider the possibility that there's some automatic, overlearned aspects to your parenting. And it would be important to attend to what it is that you're feeling, experiencing, and thinking, as you begin to engage or interact with your child. So we have an entire chapter in our book devoted to health. We see it as an essential ingredient in parenting, parents' health. And much of that is emotional health.

• 30:49Speaker 04

  And research in the last two decades has spoken very robustly to the fact that managing our emotional health requires that we can pause, we can hit the pause button psychologically, and attend to what's happening inside, what we're thinking, what we're feeling, as opposed to reacting rather quickly, in an automatic, overlearned way, to get rid of whatever unpleasantness we're feeling.

• 31:17Speaker 04

  Most people cope from the head down in that automatic, overlearned way. And we recommend coping, we call it from the ground up. Getting grounded in the present moment, paying attention to what you're feeling, and then going to the head with a wise plan. So it's about being aware of, you know, awarenessing, as Kabat-Zinn, the person who brought mindfulness into healthcare, would say, awarenessing is biggest than thinking because it subsumes thinking. But a lot of parents don't practice being aware in a zoomed-back fashion of what they're doing. So none of this happens without practice, by the way. So you can't just decide one day to be a mindful parent.

• 32:01Speaker 04

  It requires that you practice pausing, being in the moment, and leaning into what you're feeling. And we spent an entire chapter unpacking that.

• 32:10Kim Mills?

  Both of you work with kids who have serious behavior issues in your research and in your clinical work. Is your advice different for those parents than it is for dealing with run-of-the-mill, everyday problems? Or does the same type of advice apply across the board for all types of families and situations? And Dr. Kwech, maybe you could answer first, based on your work with disruptive children and those who have autism spectrum disorder.

• 32:35Speaker 03

  A lot to unpack there, I think, because historically, a lot of the evidence-based treatments that we use to work with families to address disruptive behaviors assumes a lack of skill on the parent's side. So often, you will go to a treatment for your child who is experiencing disruptive behaviors, and you'll go essentially so that a therapist can teach you possibly what you're missing. It's assumed, then, my child is misbehaving because of some sort of deficit within the parent.

• 33:19Speaker 03

  So bad, you know, bad behavior on the child part is sometimes assumed bad parenting. Right? And we try to challenge that myth in a way because we say, you can have skills, and there may be other things getting in the way of you being able to connect with your child in a meaningful way. So when working with parents of autistic kids, you know, a lot of these parents do have great skills, and they are challenged because they have a neurodivergent child. They don't understand how their child experiences the world.

• 34:03Speaker 03

  And if they're neurotypical themselves, they think, well, when a child screams and throws a fit, that means they're being defiant. Right? And therefore, I will approach my child as if they're being defiant, and I handle it by providing, you know, there's a sanction, or I put them in timeout, or I, you know, have privileges removed. But it's different because sometimes a child is not tantruming because you've told them no, but instead, they're having a meltdown because they are overstimulated by their sensory overload in the environment, whether it's noise, light, touch.

• 34:48Speaker 03

  And so to assume, then, you, your child is misbehaving because you lack skills, is to neglect this complex, you know, child, this complex parent-child relationship in this environment that a parent may not even understand. So I think we frame it in a way in this book to understand what Tim had talked about earlier. What are the behaviors that you're seeing? And the more intense the behavior is, such as lying, aggression, deceitfulness, we need to address that first.

• 35:30Speaker 03

  And if those things are managed, then you sort of go up this funnel, and these less intense behaviors, right, are something then that you can shift your parenting goals towards. But it may look different for families based on their needs, based on the parent's own personal health, the family's health, other circumstances, difficult environments, et cetera. So yes, there are core things that we found to be really important to help sort of lead the child to success, but to say one size fits all for each family or each parent-child relationship is neglecting the complexity of us as people and as a parent and a child

• 36:15Speaker 03

  together.

• 36:16Kim Mills?

  Dr. Cavell, does that approach work when you're dealing with parents who have children who are bullies or may be bullied?

• 36:24Speaker 04

  I think the conditions necessary for a strong parent-child relationship are similar in terms of what's needed. What's going to differ, Kim, is what's required of a parent, depending on their child rearing circumstances and the characteristic of the child. I mean, the research is pretty clear that children arrive in this world with certain endowments, genetic endowments, which influences their environment. Some children are really easy to parent. Some children are very challenging to parent. And so parents have to fit what they're doing to what their child needs.

• 37:03Speaker 04

  For children who are easy temperament, meet schedules, they're compliant, cooperative, they're emotionally regulated, parenting, I think the parent-child relationship is going to have the same three conditions, except contain and lead. But parents won't have to work as hard as deliberately, and it will be fairly easy to pull that off. When you have a challenging child, you have to be more intentional and conscious and explicit about what you're trying to do. Winnicott, who coined the term "good enough" mother, was a big fan of ordinary parents, ordinary mothers, in the sense that he saw in ordinary parents so many strengths.

• 37:46Speaker 04

  And I think our field, over time, has sort of cast parenting as extraordinary, as something as a separate set of skills that you don't, you're not necessarily equipped with, that you have to go to some book or some expert for. We like to believe that if you can manage well your relationships, including the one with your child, you're going to be fine. But recognize that for some children, the task is going to be more challenging, and it's going to look a little different.

• 38:14Kim Mills?

  Let's close with this one question. I'm going to throw it at both of you sequentially, which is, for each of you, what is one piece of parenting advice that you would like to leave with our listeners?

• 38:25Speaker 03

  One of the things that I talk about within the beginning of the book, which, when Tim approached me about writing this together, this is the first thing that came to my mind and really stuck with me when I was first learning how to be a clinical psychologist. So I'll give you, I'll give you this anecdote, and then I'll sort of end with what I, what I mean by it all. So I had a parent come in, and she had a young boy, and she leaned in close to me when she was trying to seek services, and she said, "I love my child, but I don't like my child."

• 39:04Speaker 03

  And it stuck with me for so long, and it took a long time for me to connect and understand what that meant, finally, when I had my own children. But I, I think the point being here that there are many things that you can work on as a parent. We can always do better and seek for more for our children. And yet, if we can lead with love, and if we can remember that at the end of the day, our task is to love our children and, and be there for them and accept them, I think that is the biggest thing that needs to happen first before you worry about anything else.

• 39:48Speaker 03

  And so there are many things we want for our children, there are many things we hope for, for our children, and if we just can accept them for who they are and where they're at, I think that is the first, the first thing you have to accomplish as a parent before you can try to do anything else.

• 40:03Kim Mills?

  Dr. Cavell?

• 40:04Speaker 04

  Parenting involves the head and the heart, or science and art, if you will. And so some parents sometimes lead too much with what's happening emotionally, and some parents are trying to do what the science they think is right. The science tells us this, there are some things that are important, and try to emphasize those things, and our book speaks to that. And there are a lot of things that are not, that don't matter that much. And so if you want to use your mind or the science of parenting, recognize that not everything is consequential. In fact, the science of parenting would say to you very strongly, when you go to decide where to put your energies, put it on the relationship. That's where you double down. Okay?

• 40:49Speaker 04

  And so if you're trying to decide, should I put my child in time now? Should I use a star chart? Should I, you know, take him to a professional? Pay attention to the relationship. Is my relationship with my child healthy? Is it strong? Has it, is it meeting that 80/20 criterion? And if not, what can I do to bolster that relationship? And I offer that because I don't think assessing the quality of the relationship is often what parents typically go to early. Instead, they're looking for a quick answer to some, to fix some problem, as opposed to saying, "How are we doing, my child and I? What can I do to make that relationship strong? Maybe, do I need to, is it, does it need to be repaired in some way?

• 41:34Speaker 04

  Am I struggling emotionally to be available and patient with my child? What do I need to do to be an emotionally healthy parent so I can have a better relationship with my child?" So it's, it's a different way to think about parenting, not as a job where you look an endless series of fixes, but it's about a relationship that you manage 18-plus years.

• 41:55Kim Mills?

  Well, I want to thank you both for joining me today. I think you have provided our listeners with some excellent and sound advice. Thank you.

• 42:03Speaker 04

  You're welcome.

• 42:04Speaker 03

  Thank you for having us.

• 42:05Kim Mills?

  And speaking of our listeners, if you would like a copy of Good Enough Parenting, you can visit the book section of our website, www.apa.org, and you can order one there. You can find previous episodes of Speaking of Psychology on our website at www.speakingofpsychology.org, or on Apple, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like what you've heard, please subscribe and leave us a review. If you have comments or ideas for future podcasts, you can email us at [email protected]. Speaking of Psychology is produced by Lee Weinerman. Our sound editor is Chris Kundian. Thank you for listening. For the American Psychological Association, I'm Kim Mills.