How to build better relationships between kids, parents, and ourselves (w/ Dr. Becky Kennedy) (Transcript)

[00:00:00] Chris Duffy:
You're listening to How to Be a Better Human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy. Today's guest, Dr. Becky Kennedy, gave a TED Talk that I have not stopped thinking about since I saw it. It, it has genuinely changed the way that I think about many relationships in my life.

I think that Dr. Becky's message is profound. I think it's extremely important. But I also want to admit something. I want to make a confession. When I first heard about Dr. Becky, I was told that she was a parenting expert, and I'll admit that I was a little dismissive. It didn't seem particularly relevant to my life. And if there is one constant in my life, it is that every time I cockily say to myself, “I don't think this is advice I need to hear,” it turns out that that is in fact exactly the advice I need to hear, absolutely 100 percent of the time, I was wrong and I need to hear it.

And of course, this was no exception. When I heard what Dr. Becky had to say, I realized that she is talking about so much more than just parent-child relationships. She is talking about all interpersonal relationships. So whether you have a kid, whether you want to have kids, or you have absolutely no interest in ever having kids, I feel very confident that you are going to take away something meaningful from Dr. Becky. Here's a clip from her TED Talk where she discusses what she thinks is the single most important skill that any person can learn and practice.

[00:01:18] Dr. Becky Kennedy:
There’s almost nothing within our interpersonal relationships that can have as much impact as repair. Whenever a parent asks me, “What one parenting strategy should I focus on?” I always say the same thing: “Get good at repair.”

So what is repair? Repair is the act of going back to a moment of disconnection, taking responsibility for your behavior, and acknowledging the impact it had on another. And I want to differentiate a repair from an apology. Because when an apology often looks to shut a conversation down—“Hey, I'm sorry I yelled. Can we move on now?”—a good repair opens one up. And if you think about what it means to get good at repair, there's so much baked in realism and hope and possibility.

[00:02:17] Chris Duffy:
We're going to have a lot more from Dr. Becky right after this, but first, a few quick ads.

[BREAK]

[00:02:27] Chris Duffy:
And we are back. On today's show, we’re talking about interpersonal relationships, parenting, and repair with Dr. Becky Kennedy.

[00:02:34] Dr. Becky Kennedy:
Hi, I'm Dr. Becky Kennedy. I'm a clinical psychologist. I'm the founder and CEO of Good Inside. I am the author of the book Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be. And I'm also a mom of three young kids.

[00:02:50] Chris Duffy:
I thought one of the really powerful, directly applicable pieces to my own life from your book is the idea that if there was one parenting technique or relationship technique that people should get really good at, it's repair. So it's like the acknowledging of we're gonna make mistakes and then how do we fix those mistakes is actually the, the most important skill.

[00:03:09] Dr. Becky Kennedy:
That's right. So for anyone listening to this, right, if you take what I say as face value, which you don't have to, but just experiment for a moment, right? And think, okay, if the most important thing to get good at is repair, well, repair already has messing up baked in, because you literally can't get good at repair if you haven't messed up. Like mess up first, repair second.

And to me that framework is just so heartening. It's so realistic. It’s so hopeful because what it says is it's not the moment where I'm not at my best that determines who I am as a person or the direction of my relationship with my child. It's actually kind of like my own recovery, what I'm able to do next, and I'm someone who's very motivated by it agency. I like to feel impactful in the world. And so to know, okay, this moment happened I'm not proud of, but wait, like now is my opportunity. Here it is in front of me. I find that so compelling and it's so true that that's what matters so much in our relationships.

[00:04:09] Chris Duffy:
And you talk about there, there being, you know, three or four key steps to repair. And that, I think this is a really important piece is that it's actually really different than an apology. You talk about how an apology is often the opposite of a repair in some ways.

[00:04:21] Dr. Becky Kennedy:
Yes. And no shade to the word “I'm sorry”. Like, I'm sorry. I like the word sorry, like, totally fine to use that word. But I think a lot of us have been apologized to as kids and as adults in this way. Right?

So I don't know, a parent who's late to pick up their kid from soccer practice, right? And the kid, you know, a kid who's picked up really late, gets very anxious because their whole survival depends on their parents. Right? And I picture a parent is like, “Look, I'm sorry. Traffic was really bad. I'm sorry.”

And in some ways, that quote, “Sorry,” like it looks to shut down a conversation. You know, the only thing a kid has to say is like, “Okay,” you know, I guess moving on, right? A repair really looks to open up a conversation. It looks to change the direction of a conversation. It actually is an opportunity to learn a lot more.

And so sorry can be part of a repair, but it's never, like, the whole essence. So to me, you know, some of those key steps for repair are number one, just acknowledge what happened. Like name it. Name what happened. Take responsibility for, like, your part and talk about what you would do differently next time or what you wish you did differently in that moment.

And I think a key part of taking responsibility, because I, a lot of us hear this as parents, it's like, well, “But my kid was really difficult, too.” I mean, I guess I could take responsibility for yelling at my kid, but if they just put on their shoes when I asked them, I wouldn't have yelled, right? I mean, the truth is, we don't want to pass on a model to our kids where they learn that other people are at fault for my bad behavior. Because I don't think any of us want our kids going into a relationship saying, “You made me yell.” We don't want our kids to say that, so therefore we just can't say it.

So, that repair, different from an apology, might sound like this. Like, let's say it's, again, the late pick up. “Hey, I was late picking you up. I'm sure that felt scary. I'm really sorry. And it's not your fault. I'm gonna leave work earlier to get here. Or, I'm gonna be really more conscious of my time.” Right? And now my kid really has the safety with me where they might actually share that, “Yeah, I was scared,” or maybe it's just, “I appreciate you doing that.” Right? It's actually kind of a, “I'm sorry, I see you.” And almost like “Here's permission to open this up.”

[00:06:36] Chris Duffy:
It also makes me think that when we're dealing with kids or when we're dealing with any sort of relationship, saying I'm sorry is often more powerful if there's been time, like if you do it in the moment, just like, “I'm sorry, let's move on.”

But if you say it two days later, then I all of a sudden I'm like, “Oh, you've, you've been reflecting on this. You're still thinking about it. That actually is an opportunity for a conversation.” If you say, “Hey, you know, the fight we had yesterday. I just want to say I'm sorry.” It means a lot more than in the moment. “Okay. I'm sorry I yelled. Let’s can we have dinner now? Can we just have the dinner?”

[00:07:02] Dr. Becky Kennedy:
Totally. I hear a lot from parents like, “Well, it's too late.” Like, you know, or “It happened a week ago, what am I going to do?” Or they say something like, “I don't know, I don't know if my kid even remembers it.” Like what's the point of kind of, quote, “bringing it back up”?

But let's all think about a partnership we're in. So let's say it's our boss at work and they kind of snapped at us in a meeting and, like, felt really bad. Right? And then they don't say anything. And then let's say four days later, our boss comes to us randomly and it's like, “Hey Becky, I just wanted to tell you, I've been thinking about that moment where I yelled at you. And I'm really sorry that wasn't your fault, and I'm sure that felt really bad, you know definitely working on managing my frustration, so I don't take it out on you. Just want to let you know that.”

Okay, even if I wasn't thinking about it at the moment, I mean, the feelings I would have toward my boss, like, you've been thinking about that for four days, like, that was still on your mind. I feel so important. I feel so respected in that moment that someone actually cared enough about me and my relationship with them to return. And so the act of apologizing and letting someone know—I always think of the phrase like "I'm holding them in my mind”—actually is very relationship building. And so I always encourage parents, yes, it's never too late. Go say that. It's gonna feel to your kid the same way it would feel to you, which is really good.

[00:08:19] Chris Duffy:
I’ve always enjoyed listening to TED Talks, but it’s, it's a rare TED Talk that has made me actually tear up and, and, like, be myself so emotional that I'm crying and yours did. And it was this idea, this experiment that you sometimes do with thinking about our own parents.

[00:08:34] Dr. Becky Kennedy:
So yeah, this kind of exercise I walked through, you know, during my TED talk was, and for anyone listening, you know, if you're somewhere, maybe you're not driving, it is kind of emotional. So don't want to be responsible for anyone—

[00:08:46] Chris Duffy:
Yeah, pull over to the side for a second here.

[00:08:47] Dr. Becky Kennedy:
Swerving. You know, yeah, pull over to the side. Okay, um, put in park. Just imagine your own parents now calling you or getting a letter from them that’s, that's some version of, “Hey, like, I’ve been thinking about your early years, and I think there were a lot of moments that probably felt really bad to you, and those moments weren't your fault. They were moments when I was having a hard time. If I could go back, I would have, you know, just kind of stepped aside and calmed myself down and then come to you to figure out what you needed, because probably you needed help in those moments. And if you ever want to talk to me about what those moments were like, I'll listen. Not to be defensive, not to have a rebuttal, like truly just listen to understand.”

To me, that's the essence of a repair. It goes back to a moment that was painful. We take responsibility. And then we allow actually a very different story to be written from that moment, instead of that moment being kind of covered with shame and self blame and awful feelings, actually now the moment has connection and compassion and, um, understanding and warmth, like all the good stuff, right?
[00:09:59] Chris Duffy:
One thing that I found really, uh, powerful in the book that I'd love to, to pull out is this idea that narrative is how we make sense of the world, that having a story is so important, and that one of the jobs of a parent is to make that story explicit, because often, kids are pulling a completely different story in their head, and so we need to kind of say what the real story is for them.

[00:10:26] Dr. Becky Kennedy:
Storytelling is so important for humans and storytelling is so important in how we manage emotions, right? So, you know, my daughter wanted to play with my son, and my son was having a play date. He’s actually pretty kind. Let her be in his room playing and then at some point, they want to do their own thing. Totally understandable. Right? This is many years ago.

She melted down the floor. It's like, you know, huge meltdown. She felt so rejected, so alone, et cetera, carried her to her room, and here's what helped more than anything. I just said, “Let me see if I got this right. Oh, you were playing with them, and you were included, and you were doing that little game they were doing, and then all of a sudden, he said, ‘Oh, I don't want anyone else in the room,’ and then you couldn’t. Oh, and then you've collapsed on the floor, and then I picked you up, and then you said, ‘I hate you,’ you know, you know, and then I carried you to your room, right?”

The narrative, the process of making overwhelming feeling into a more coherent narrative is the thing, honestly. That is what therapy does for us. Therapy is the process of making your life story more coherent than it was. Things were kind of, you know, patchwork all over the place, and when you start to quilt them together, none of those patches change. But you have more clarity, you see how they kind of fit together, and now all of a sudden you have something woven together, which is completely different than the parts scattered around.

And we don't have to change the story. You don't have to make anything better, but just actually making something more coherent for your child takes something that was messy and incoherent and makes it more organized and understandable, and it's so helpful for kids and for adults.

[00:12:03] Chris Duffy:
There's something that you said that I, I literally wrote down because I need to have this somewhere where I can like see it physically, which is “Memory is original events combined with every other memory of that event.” So the idea that it's not just this one fixed thing, but that each time we tell ourselves that story, we're changing the memory and changing the emotional weight and the way that that memory affects us.

[00:12:23] Dr. Becky Kennedy:
A hundred percent. Yes, it is kind of like a mind blowing idea, right? You know, and this has a lot to do with kids and their fears, right? So, uh, something happened scary with a dog to a three year old, right? And then my kid is like, seems phobic of dogs. They don't even look at a book with the dog, right? And a lot of times as parents are like, “I guess I shouldn't mention dogs. I should avoid dogs at all costs, right?”

Um, but what happens then is that story, that memory just lives as it is. Let's say a certain number of days later, I say something to my kid like, “You know, ugh, we saw that dog. It barked so loudly. We were not expecting that.” All right, let's just say that.

So what I've done to my kid’s memories, like I've gone back to this point that their memory, and now I've surrounded it with a new memory. Remembering that memory, but the new memory is slower and more connected and more coherent and more understandable. I've now infused all those elements into how that original memory lives. And now I've actually changed the memory and how it plays out in my kid's life.

[00:13:27] Chris Duffy:
We're going to take a quick break right now. And we are going to hopefully create some new memories with a few podcast ads. And then we will be right back with more from Dr. Becky. Don't go anywhere.

[BREAK]

[00:13:48] Chris Duffy:
And we are back. So, Dr. Becky, one of the things that I found most powerful in your talk and in your book is this idea that we, we all make mistakes, that none of us can go through life without making errors. And yet we have to tell ourselves that doing something badly, it actually does not mean that we are a bad person. Can you talk about that really important distinction that you draw?

[00:14:09] Dr. Becky Kennedy:
You know, we conflate behavior with identity, right? And so again, if you're not driving, right? Please do not do this while driving. I'd ask you to join me to like actually put your hands in front of you, like separated from each other and just look at one of your hands and be like, “This is my behavior. It's what I do,” and then purposely, like, shift gaze to the other side and say, “This is my identity. It's who I am.”

And an assumption I lead with, it's, you know, present in everything I do, is that people are inherently good inside. That speaks to their identity. Now, we are good inside for our identity, and sometimes we all do not so great things. But where we actually get into a problem in terms of the self blame we bring upon ourselves and actually also it gets in our way of making change in the future, which is particularly counterproductive, is let's say we yell at our partner or we, I don't know, miss a deadline or I don't know, something we do that's, you know, not good.

What ends up happening to those hands is they come together. Instead of being able to separate, “I'm a good person who yelled, I'm a good person who missed this deadline, I'm a good person who made a mistake,” right? We kind of go into, we see the mistake, and it becomes us. We see the missed deadline, and it says everything we need to know about our character.

So we say, “I'm so horrible, I'm so lazy, uh, I'm such a monster, like, if anyone ever knew I was like this, they would never love me.” Like, we tell ourselves these stories where we are our latest behavior. And that actually stops us from being able to change. That's actually, in some ways, one of, like, the cruel ironies of this.

That, like, it would be one thing if self blame, even though it was painful, was, like, an excellent motivator of change. It'd be like, “All right, well, I guess it gets me to the right place.” It stagnates us. It stagnates us. We hold ourselves in shame. That literally freezes our body. We kind of like cocoon into ourselves.

We hide, not only from other people, actually from the, the actual problem going on and the skill we might build, and we stay in the same place. When you're able to say to yourself, “Hey, I'm a good person who totally missed this deadline at work,” then we can be curious. We can be curious because there's a gap between our good identity and our not so good behavior. And when there's a gap, we say, “I wonder. Becky, I wonder why I did that. Okay. I wonder what I would need to not do that next time. What systems can I even put in place?” You know?

[00:16:24] Chris Duffy:
But this is also, I think a place where separating the core identity from the behaviors and the actions, obviously, at any point in our life, or maybe not so obviously at any point in our life, we can work on, on separating those things out.

But as a child, one of the biggest things that's happening is you're forming those ideas about who you are and that sense of self. And so you should say to your child, if you're in a moment like this, “You're a good kid who's having a hard time,” or some version of that so that they actually get those two things separated out explicitly.

[00:16:55] Dr. Becky Kennedy:
Yeah. Yes. I mean, you know, I think about all the years of my practice and one of the biggest learnings was something that was true for like all the families, even though all their situations, kids’ ages were different. And to me, the thing it boiled down to is when my kid is struggling, do they see me looking at them like they're a good kid having a hard time or a bad kid doing bad things?

Seeing a kid as a good kid, having a hard time, let me be clear, it does not mean… Let's say my son is hitting a friend. I'm not like, “Well, he's a good kid having a hard time. So express your feelings, buddy.” Like, no, that would never be what I recommend. But if I see my kid is a good kid having a hard time, I see they need my help. I need to step in actually with a very firm boundary. I might separate them and say, “Wow, you really wanted that block. I'm not gonna let you hit. Let's find another way.” And maybe even later, I tell them a story about a hard time I had, you know, to kind of, so they didn't feel alone.

If I see them as a bad kid bad doing bad things, I literally do one thing. I'm like, “You can't get your iPad later.” I, like, punish them. I just feel like they're my enemy. And one of the most important things to know about kids and their development is, you know, as a parent, we’re our kids’ mirrors. They literally take in and they form their identity around the version of themselves we reflect back.

So when our kids are struggling, they take in that mirrored image. Am I a bad kid? Am I a monster? Am I difficult? Am I a sociopath? Right? Or, am I a good kid having a hard time? And good kids who have a hard time can build skills, they can change, all generating from that good identity. You know, the more we reflect back, unfortunately, through punishments, through sending our kids away, through these words we use, right, that our kids are kind of, quote, “bad kids”, the irony is then they start building their identity around being a bad kid. It's no wonder they act more in that way. So yes, I think everything really flows from, from that image we reflect back.

[00:18:55] Chris Duffy:
So, so I'm not a parent myself, but I, I did teach at an elementary school. And when I was teaching, uh, fifth grade, there were a couple of tips that people gave me who are more experienced teachers, and I couldn't believe how dramatic an impact they had in the classroom with kids. And one of them was using a version of this, which is to say when a kid was acting out or, um, behaving in a way that I, that I thought was, you know, let's put it in quotes, but like “bad”, they were doing a bad behavior. To instead of saying to them, like, “Don't do that,” to say some version of “This doesn't seem like you,” or “You don't seem like the kind of person who… I know you're not the kind of person who does this, who wants to do this.”

And all of a sudden, the fact that the kid would see like, “Oh, I see you as a good kid who pushed someone on the playground, or a good kid who said a bad word,” as opposed to, “You're the kid who says bad words,” I couldn't believe the shift in my relationship with those kids when I started saying, “It doesn't seem like you,” but I'm just choosing to believe that that good person is inside of them.

[00:19:56] Dr. Becky Kennedy:
It, it’s so profound. You know, I, I think about that a lot with parenting. I see that with my own kids. Like, when my kids are struggling, I have to see something in them before they're able to access it within themselves.

When I had just two kids before I had my third, you know, my, uh, son and daughter would get into this pattern where she would share everything with him. You know, her older brother. Sure, you could have this or you want this. You could, sure. And then whenever she wanted something, he's like, no, you know?

I remember this day he had this snack mix that kind of like, it's like cheddar with like somewhere like these like breadsticks and pretzels, like all these different things. My daughter said, everybody knows for her, the pretzel parts are her favorite. And she's like, "Can I have some of your snacks?” She'd already finished. He's like, “No. You already finished yours.” And every part of me want to be like, "Why don't you share with your sister? Your sister is so generous, and your sister shares with you all the time. What is wrong with you?”

But if I zoom out in a more meta way, I'm like, okay. All I'm saying to both kids is your sister has generosity and you do not. Your sister shares and you are selfish. She is the good kid and you are the bad kid. And then I was like, “Wait, what's my goal?” It's not to get him to be more like her, it's to get him to access generosity and sharing, and there's things that are blocking it.

All I said to him was, “You know, you have as much generosity in you, I'm going to cry, as, as anyone else in this family, I just want you to know that.” And I walked out of the room, and I literally heard him say, “You can't have my pretzels, but you can have some of the other stuff.” Now, pretzels were her favorite, but still, this was like a really big shift.

And I feel like had I said, “What is wrong with you? Can you share with your sister one time? Everything’s always about you.” I know he would have doubled down on the response because I was reflecting back to him that identity. And that's the way he would have responded.

[00:21:46] Chris Duffy:
It, it’s also interesting, it makes me think about something that you talk about several times in the book, which is that we kind of need to separate out what we want as a parent in the moment that would make our lives easier, versus the kind of adult that we want our child to learn how to be.

If your son is just the kind of person who, when someone asks, immediately gives away everything they want, regardless of whether it solves their own needs or their own desire to have a snack, that would make your life easier in that moment as a parent, right? Like your sister asks, give it all to her.

[00:22:16] Dr. Becky Kennedy:
Right.

[00:22:16] Chris Duffy:
But you also want your son to be the kind of person who balances his own needs with the values of generosity and sharing. You don't want him to be someone who just gives all of his things away and is left with nothing as an, as an adult. So, okay, he didn't do it in a way that made her perfectly happy, but he did it in a way that solved it for both of them in a way that's the skill that you're trying to build as an adult.

[00:22:37] Dr. Becky Kennedy:
Completely. It, it is always kind of like a fun exercise, right? Where I picture, you know, I don't know, a parent of like a 26 year old. Let's just say. If I'm like, “Hey, what's your son like or something or daughter?” And being like, “Oh, I'm so proud. They're so compliant. They're so submissive. And whenever anyone asks for something, they just like drop everything they're doing. And like, they really run themselves into the ground. But they, like, always take care of everyone else, right?”

That is never what any of us would imagine someone, like, gushing about, right? But if you think about the way we gush about our six year olds, that's not usually the words we use because it would just sound creepy to, like, be like, “She's so compliant.”

[00:23:17] Chris Duffy:
Right.

[00:23:17] Dr. Becky Kennedy:
But what we say is, “She's so easy.” She's so easy. And what we mean is “She's so convenient”.

[00:23:24] Chris Duffy:
Yeah.

[00:23:24] Dr. Becky Kennedy:
It’s so convenient to have a child who, you know, okay, that's fine. And that's fine. I'll go with the flow. And this is not to say we don't want to teach our kids to be flexible. But if we think about the way we so often prioritize convenience early on, we are then encouraging those kids to be adults who are compliant and submissive and, you know, have a hard time standing their ground sometimes.

Doing both is hard. It's hard as adult. Where am I? Where's someone else? When can I be generous? When do I stand me on ground? My needs, their needs. This is like the constant conflict, but certainly, we can't raise kids who are compliant and submissive and expect them to be assertive and confident as adults. That's not how it works.

[00:24:04] Chris Duffy:
There's a, there's a part in the book where you're talking about, um, parents of a younger kid who are very worried because the kid is, as they perceive, to be shy. And you're talking about how in your private practice, right before you'd seen them, you had the parents of a teenager who said like, “Oh, he never stands up for himself. He just does exactly what all the other kids want.”

[00:24:22] Dr. Becky Kennedy:
It was one of those moments where… In my practice, I was like, “Wait, is like anybody here to notice this?” Like, I had seen these parents of like a teenager and they were referred to me, their kid got in trouble at school for like a peer pressure, like kind of situation.

He was one of those kids who just kind of like went along with things, but got in trouble at the school for kind of, being kind of a passive bystander and I remember them coming to me saying like, “I don't like… he needs to know right from wrong.” Like, I don't care what his friends are doing, right? The classic, like, so, like, if his friends jumped off the Empire State Building, it looks like he would just jump off the Empire State Building.

Their words means, “Why can't he be more confident?” Like, this is a flag for me. This is why we're coming to you. We want your help helping him be more confident. Okay, the next session we worked on that. We talked about things, looked at a framework, yada, yada. The next session I saw parents of a younger child, who was the kid who always clung to them at birthday parties.

You're at a birthday party, your kid's clinging to you, and you see 20 other kids happily doing gymnastics or soccer or art, right? They run off, and it's very easy as a parent. They’re like, “What’s wrong with me? Everyone’s judging me, right?” And they were saying, this is like now a lot of birthday parties and a lot of situations are always the last one to join. Why can't they be more confident?

And it struck me. These are back to back sessions. Okay, so we define confidence early on, right? As jumping in and doing what everyone else is doing. And we define confidence just 10 years later as being able to notice what everyone's doing and resist it because it doesn't feel right to you. Like, it seems like we talk kids out of that trait early on and hope that they can access it later on. Again, doesn't make sense, right? And I remember saying that because I had a kid like this too.

One of my three kids was the, like, clingy, like, it was the last five minutes of her birthday party. That was when she wanted to join. Only the last five minutes. There was always a meltdown that the birthday party ended too quickly. You know, that that was, like, for two years of my life. What I said to myself and what I said to these parents is, like, “My daughter is amazing.” Like, she sees 20 kids doing something. She sees a million parents saying, “Hey, do you want to join? Do you want to join? Don't you want to have fun?” And she's like, “I don't. Like, I know myself. I do not want to do this. I will do it when I want.”

And, like, I remember I joked with those parents, like, and I don't think this is true. If you have a kid who quickly joins, that could just be their temperament. It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with them. But sometimes, like, turning something on its head is powerful. And I'd be like, “Those kids are all sheep.” Like, those kids are sheep. Like, your kid is like, “I don't want to do this.” That actually is what we want for our kids. And so, again, looking at how we break things down, like you said, how do we interact today in a way that helps our kids become the adults that, you know, are the best versions of themselves? That’s really the name of the game.

[00:27:00] Chris Duffy:
Yeah, this actually makes me, uh, think about the way in which you define success as a parent. It falls into a combination of two buckets. But it seems like a lot of what you talk about in the book and, and in your work is that success as a parent is having a kid who can one, trust their own experiences of the world, and then also trust their own value so that they don't fall into either self doubt or self blame. It's like the opposite of both of those things.

[00:27:29] Dr. Becky Kennedy:
Yes, I think that self trust is like the hugest thing. That's the essence of confidence. That's how I define confidence, right? It's not feeling good about yourself. It's trusting that you know yourself. That, you know, the things that go on inside you are real. That doesn't mean you're allowed to act any one way in the world, but it means you approach yourself with, like, respect and curiosity. I've always thought if my kids, you know, when they're out of my house, like, if they have one core self belief, like, I'll feel really good if it's, like, “I'm the only one in my body. I know how I feel. I trust myself. Um, I relate to the things that go on inside me with curiosity and kindness.”

[00:28:10] Chris Duffy:
One of the things that I think we often, when we're talking to a child, and we're trying to be loving and caring, a lot of the things that we would say to reassure them can often negate their own self experience.

And so, like, someone says, “I'm afraid of the dark,” you go, “Oh, it's not that scary, don't worry.” That is actually telling them, like, “You're wrong, you're not scared.” And then they start to doubt whether they actually perceive the world correctly or not.

[00:28:39] Dr. Becky Kennedy:
100%. And I think as, you know, as humans, we often think in binaries. We're like, “Oh, so I'm not supposed to say that. I’m supposed to say you're right. The dark is so scary. No, there’s like—

[00:28:48] Chris Duffy:
The dark is terrifying. It's full of monsters. You're correct.

[00:28:51] Dr. Becky Kennedy:
Exactly. And it's similar. I think another example of this is your kids comes home and they say, “I'm the only kid in my class who can't read.” Again, if a lot of my goal is self trust, right, is leading with that, right? I always think my kids are kids. Can only tolerate it, the feelings we can tolerate in them. And again, if we think about adulthood, maybe now my kid is the only one who can't read. At some point in adulthood, they'll be the only one who can't fill in the blank.

Right? They'll feel less than. They'll feel lonely. They'll feel othered. That happens. And I always think, like, it's just about whether kids have developed skills to manage those experiences. It's not about whether those experiences still happen or don't happen in adulthood. They do, right? So, I'm the only one who can't read.

Think about saying to a kid, “Ugh, sounds like a tricky day. Tell me what happened,” or, “You’re noticing the other kids in your class are reading chapter books, and you're saying you're not doing yet. That yet.” Hmm. I'm just like basically saying to them, “The things you notice and feel, like I'm going to lead with assuming those are true.”

Right? I, and in some ways it's so much more poignant than that. So I'm really saying to my kid is, “This thing that feels overwhelming to you is something I can face. I can name it.” And as soon as I can name it and face it, it immediately becomes less overwhelming to a kid. What's really scary to a kid is they're like, “I'm the only one who can't read a chapter book.” And they're like, “Wow, my parent had to do a whole song and dance around that. I guess they don't like the part of me who's a slower reader. They can't even tolerate that.” That, that really is hard for a kid.

[00:30:31] Chris Duffy:
Yeah, there's so much of this that we're, we can be afraid to just be honest or to listen. You say that one of the things that is the most important for making people feel secure in a relationship is understanding. And I'd never thought of this before, but you say the opposite of understanding is convincing.

[00:30:48] Dr. Becky Kennedy:
Yeah. So I don't know, like you and your partner are like, “I have to go to my family's for the holidays.” "We have to go to my family’s." “We said last year we'd go to mine.” “No, we didn’t." “We say last year we'd go to mine.”

Whatever that fight is, convincing is the mode I was just in. “We, we, we're supposed to go to mine.” “What are you talking about?” Right? “That doesn't make sense.” “And here's why it makes more sense.” I'm trying to convince. I'm trying to get my partner out of where they are in their world, bring them to my world so they can only say, “Oh, Becky, you're right. I'm so glad I see it your way now, like you have enlightened me.” I'm laughing because my partner will be like, “You try to do that with me all the time.” We all do. None of us.

[00:31:21] Chris Duffy:
Yeah, of course. Of course.

[00:31:22] Dr. Becky Kennedy:
None of us are perfect. Remember?

[00:31:24] Chris Duffy:
Yes.

[00:31:24] Dr. Becky Kennedy:
Understanding would mean saying in the moment, “Okay, we have a problem to solve. Let me just push that over here for a second.” So, let's say, in this example, I'd say, “Wait, wait, okay, let's just pause for a second. It seems really important for you to go to your family, just like tell me about it. Oh, because you missed the gift giving thing last year. Oh, and because whenever with my family, Aunt Sally does this, right? Okay, let's switch, right?”

And when you understand you're connecting, you're actually connecting, and now both of you actually have a bridge to walk to each other's worlds. Where, when you're convincing, you're each very, very much in your own world. There's no connection, and problems can't get solved that way.

[00:32:00] Chris Duffy:
I feel like, um, especially as a, a heterosexual man, we're very socialized to find solutions, to be fixing, fixing, fixing. And yet, when my partner or when a friend comes to me with a problem, it is so rare that they actually want a solution. Really, what they want is to be heard and to be understood. And it's so annoying if I go to a friend and say, “I'm so stressed. Oh, my gosh. I can't believe all these things that are happening at work right now.” If they go, “Okay, well, why don't you take this meditation class or something?” I'm like, “That's not what I'm asking for. I just want you to hear me.” And kids want that same thing. They want us to validate and to hear what they're saying more than they necessarily want us to always be, like, in fix mode.

[00:32:43] Dr. Becky Kennedy:
100%. And I think, you know, as parents just reminding ourselves, like, that is an action. Understanding someone is an action. I always say presence is an action. There's moments, even as adults. You've had such a bad day, you have a close friend over, maybe it's a partner, someone you really trust, and like, you're so upset. And them sitting with you on the couch with their hand on your back, just their presence.

[00:33:06] Chris Duffy:
Yes.

[00:33:06] Dr. Becky Kennedy:
Their ability to say, like, “I am here with you.” That's what heals. That's what makes us feel safe. That's what inevitably makes us able to problem solve ourselves. The only reason we can't problem solve ourselves, maybe it's your case, Chris, you might be like, “Maybe I should take that medication class,” is because you're overwhelmed with feelings, right? Someone else doesn't have to offer the solution, they have to help you with the overwhelming feelings, and the biggest thing that helps us is not feeling alone.

[00:33:30] Chris Duffy:
I feel like that's something I really struggle with, right? It's the idea of like, well, there's a bright side to everything. And it's like, no, sometimes there aren’t. It's okay to just be sad. You can be sad.

[00:33:40] Dr. Becky Kennedy:
Yeah. I mean, I think this is like such a larger point. Like, I always, you know, people always say in passing, like, “Don't you just want your kids to be happy?” Don't you just want your kids to be happy? And I can't help myself. And I was like, no. And again, it doesn't mean I want my kids to be miserable, but I want my kids to be able to feel the whole range of emotions that come with being human and, like, how they learn to react to all those feelings early on. And that ability to do it at 25 comes so much from how we interact with our kids in those moments when they're young.

[00:34:06] Chris Duffy:
Well, Becky Kennedy, thank you so much for being on the show. It's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you. And I, I cannot tell you how important I think the work is and how great your book is and useful and practical. It’s, it’s been an absolute pleasure.

[00:34:18] Dr. Becky Kennedy:
Thank you so much.

[00:34:21] Chris Duffy:
That is it for today's episode of How to Be a Better Human. Thank you so much to today's guest, Dr. Becky Kennedy. Her book is called Good Inside, and it is fantastic. I am your host, Chris Duffy, and you can find more from me, including my weekly newsletter and upcoming live shows, at chrisduffycomedy.com.

How to Be a Better Human is brought to you on the TED side by Daniella Balarezo, Chloe Shasha Brooks, and Banban Cheng, who are not just good inside, they're great inside.

Every episode of our show is professionally fact checked. This episode was fact checked by Julia Dickerson and Matheus Salles, and they are currently awaiting numerous fact check confirmations from tantrummed children around the globe.

On the PRX side, our show is put together by a dream team of grownups—Morgan Flannery, Noor Gill, Patrick Grant, and Jocelyn Gonzales. And of course, thanks to you for listening to our show and making this all possible. We will be back next week with even more episodes of How to Be a Better Human. Thanks for listening.