GO TO SPOTIFY

QUOTES:

If my friend were a surgeon and called me to say, “I’m not doing surgery right, I’m messing everything up, and I kind of messed up this person forever,” and then I found out she never went to med school or did a residency, I’d probably say, “Hey, this is not because you’re a bad surgeon. You weren’t adequately prepared.”

When I’ve asked parents the number one reason why they don’t get the support they think they need, the answer I hear most often is: “I should be able to do this on my own.”

When we’re struggling, we can either say, “What is wrong with me? This is my fault,” or we can say, “What resources and support do I need?” Those are two completely different paths. One is activating and hopeful and has a likelihood of change. The other spirals into an abyss and a freeze state of shame, which makes change nearly impossible.

Connect before you correct.

It’s never too late. Repair is amazing. The parent listening right now thinking, “I messed up my kid forever”—you didn’t. By the way, I sometimes say bad things to my kids too. We’re human.

If I believe my kid is good inside, I picture it like this:
One hand—this is my kid. This is their identity. They are good inside.
The other hand—far away—this is their behavior.
They lied to your face? Not great behavior. They hit their sister? Definitely not great behavior. But those things are separate. Keep your hands apart. Then you can say, “I have a good kid who hit their sister.”

The only reason we want to come down so hard on our kids is because we collapse those two things. We see bad behavior and instantly assume we have a bad kid. We collapse identity and behavior.

Trying to understand your kid’s bad behavior is the foundation for effectively changing it. You can only change what you understand.

We want to help kids become resilient—resilience over happiness. Resilience comes from being able to tolerate and sit with the widest range of emotions, not constrict ourselves.

We have an unconscious wish that our kids will heal us, but in reality, our kids trigger us. Why do we think our kids will heal us? Because, in general, we all have the wish that something in the external world—something we can gaze at—will finally give us the comfort, safety, and security we’ve always been yearning for. Part of adulthood involves learning to gaze inward—not from a place of blame but from a place of power. It’s hard, but I have the power to do that myself.

I might say, “Oh, so many pieces of this puzzle… I don’t know where it goes—here? Here? Here?”

If my kid says, “Do it for me!” I’ll say, “Listen, sweetie, I’m not going to do it for you. Here’s why: I know you’re capable of figuring this out. The best feeling in the world is the feeling you get when you think you can’t do something, and then you wait a little bit, and you realize you can. I’m not going to take that feeling away from you. I’ll take a deep breath with you. We can take a break. But I know you can do this.”

Here’s the first line every parent needs in their toolbox:
“I’m so glad you’re talking to me about this.”

In an adult context: if I said, “I’m so mad at my husband. He never helps at bedtime. He forgot the one thing I asked,” and he replied, “You know what, Becky, I’m so glad you’re telling me about this,” I’d be like, “I think we’re good now.” I’d forget what I was mad about.

Because what someone is really saying is, “This feeling you’re having is real, and I still want to be in a relationship with you when you feel that way.”

That’s what our kids need to absorb from us:
“My parent can tolerate this part of me before I learn to tolerate this part of me.”

Here’s the irony—and what’s so interesting: we feel before we think.

Our feelings give us basic information about survival, danger, and what we need.

If my kid is having a tantrum and I say to myself, “My kid is so difficult,” I’m not reacting to the tantrum. I’m reacting to what happens inside of me when my kid has a tantrum.

The only reason I want to shut down the tantrum is because I want to shut down this feeling that I don’t have the skill to manage.

“Go to your room,” “No iPad for the week,” or “No dessert”—that’s soft to me. That’s desperate. No parent is doing that from a place of groundedness. If I were the CEO of my company and one of my employees was acting out, and I said, “Go to your room. No lunch for a week,” no one would say, “Wow, Becky is an amazing leader.” They’d say, “Wow, she’s breaking down. She’s desperate.”

What skill does my kid need so that next time, they actually have a new skill to use, instead of being punished for not having it?

You're a passenger and I'm the pilot, and it's very turbulent. You're looking around, all the passengers are freaking out. Pilot one would be the classic punishment parent. They get on the intercom and say something like, "Everyone back there, stop. You're so dramatic, making a big deal of nothing, and you're ruining my flight." This is what we say to our kids: "You're ruining my dinner out," or whatever. Meanwhile, if I'm thinking about you, the passenger, you're like, "First of all, does this person know it's pretty turbulent? They didn't even mention it. Second, all it takes is passengers being upset to make my pilot go off the deep end?" That's scary. You're more scared. Pilot two is the opposite extreme: "Everyone back there is scared, and you know what, it is scary. I'm just going to open the cockpit door. If anyone wants to come in here and take over, be my guest." Terrifying. Now your feelings are contagious. That’s what happens when a child says, "I want to watch one more show." If as a parent you think, "I don’t care about them watching another show," and make the change consciously, kids can sense that. But if you suddenly give in—“Okay, fine”—a kid feels like you opened the cockpit door. They sense they can make big decisions, and that's terrifying for them because they feel they don't have a leader.

The pilot you want to hear is the one who says, “I hear that everyone’s freaking out. You're right. It's very turbulent. Stay calm. Even if it's not that turbulent, you still say, 'I recognize it’s turbulent. Everyone's upset. Do your thing if you need to scream. I’m about to go do my job. I've done this a million times. I’m going to land us in Los Angeles. I’ll see you on the ground.’” You're like, "Why am I calm? Nothing around me changed," but you are calm. You want a leader who sees your feelings are real and is not infected by them. The only thing that stops that infection or contagion is a boundary—and the ability to know: I am not my kid. Those are their feelings.

In moments of challenge, we don’t rise to the occasion. We fall to the level of our training.

Zrzeczenie się Praw Własności i Klauzula Użycia Edukacyjnego

Prezentowane na tej platformie treści, w tym m.in. transkrybowane cytaty, nie są naszą własnością. Wszelkie prawa i własność do opublikowanych treści należą do oficjalnych autorów i twórców odpowiednich kanałów YouTube i Spotify, z których pochodzą te treści. Materiał ten jest udostępniany wyłącznie w celach edukacyjnych. Nie rościmy sobie żadnych praw własności ani autorstwa tych treści i uznajemy, że pozostają one własnością intelektualną ich odpowiednich właścicieli.