Dr. Becky Kennedy
speaker
3,434 appearances
7 recordings
6 series
first heard Feb 2024
last heard 18 Jun
Dr. Becky Kennedy’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 2.
Appearances
It should be no surprise that when our kid doesn't make the soccer team the next year, our kid has that much more of a kind of tantrum reaction because they have learned how to react to that feeling. It has a lot to do with how we respond to the feeling. And so resilience building in that moment and actually confidence and capability building means saying something back to your kid simple.
I'm so glad you're talking to me about this. I believe you. Tell me more. Oh, that sounds like a hard day at school. I'm actually just saying this thing that overwhelms you doesn't overwhelm me. And more so, I still like you when you feel this way. I don't have to escape from it. That means, let's fast forward to... Someone got a promotion in your analyst class before you did.
What do we want for our kid is to figure that out. What happened? What's going on? Let me stick with it. Not to say the next day I quit my job. And so a lot of that, though, it doesn't happen just when you're 22. It happens from all the resilience building blocks that have already been set as a pattern in much earlier days.
Yeah, I don't think dismissing someone's feelings or minimizing it or distracting, I would say none of that is going to help them build resilience. Our kids can only learn to tolerate the range of feelings we tolerate in them. That's what resilience comes from. Essentially, every feeling is overwhelming to a kid because, again, kids are born with all the feelings and none of the skills.
And the number one way kids build skills to manage feelings is not from a book. It is not from a class. It is not didactic. It is they absorb the way we react to them when they're in a hard place. And so are basically, quote, sitting down on the bench with them and basically saying, yeah, tell me more about this. And then what happened? And yes, quote, allowing your kid to talk about it.
They might not want to talk about it, but essentially giving them the message of the things that overwhelm you don't overwhelm me. I don't need to run away from them. That is such a big percentage of how kids build resilience.
That's a lot of it. Being able to say to someone, this stinks and you can cope. I believe you and I believe in you. It sounds like that's essentially what your wife says. That would be hard. And you're someone who's always cope with hard things. And that's what would happen again.
That's so beautiful. I think that actually is the essence of what our kids need from us in hard times, because when our kids are having a hard moment, and again, their hard moments can seem small to us because they didn't lose a lot of money. It's actually just that they didn't get invited to a slumber party. But in their world, that's the same feeling.
And so when we're in our low point, someone's ability to believe that we're feeling that way, but also see a more capable version of ourselves than we can access in that moment, what feels better than that combination? Nothing.
So I really mean this as a true question. When you asked me how to discipline a child, tell me more what you picture.
Part of the work I love doing with parents is sometimes when we're like, well, like flesh it out. What do you mean? And what really matters? Like we tend to like hear a lot of our own solutions. But OK, there's a couple of things here. Number one, again, going back to our job, such our role. What is our role? I believe a parent's role is very akin to a coach, right?
What would you do if your kid is not making layups? And do we feel, let's say even a kid is making layups. My kid is a great basketball player. They make layups. But in this game, they missed every layup. In the next game, they're missing every layup. I just want to know if any of us are thinking, what kind of consequence do I need to give this kid?
That's right.
It's really interesting. As a parent or coach, you might be frustrated and be like, what the heck? I know this kid can make a simple layup. There is nobody even guarding them and they are missing layups. They're not even putting them up against the backboard. We might be frustrated. But if we heard ourselves or a coach say, look, I am going to have to take away your TV time.
Why would that help now the next time they take a layup? just going to feel like a shitty basketball player, they're probably going to be less likely to make the layup. It's just that we've been doing this to kids for so long that we call it discipline, but it actually makes no sense. This is the biggest thing we challenge at Good Inside. It doesn't make sense.
It's not how we even treat professional athletes anymore. We've modernized there. It's just kids are the last area to modernize because they're not a group of people who are able to speak up and say, this doesn't make sense and this makes us feel like shit. So I think a different framework. Okay, so my kid keeps hitting someone with a Nerf gun. And what you said was so insightful.
My kid, maybe they just don't even have the impulse control to have something as awesome as a Nerf gun. Yeah, that's what it is. Right? And not shoot it at someone. If every time I threw food from my plate, it stuck on the ceiling. And you're like, Becky, don't do that again. I'd be like, I feel like I've just got to see if that keeps happening. I'm newer to the world. And if I did it...
And someone's like, you don't respect Jordan. I'd be like, no offense. This is not anything to do with my respect for Jordan. I just found this phenomenon pretty fascinating and I wanted to see if it would happen again. This to me, and I want to make this usable for you and our listeners here, I call this your MGI. When our kids act out, we all have an LGI, least generous interpretation.
We all do. My kid doesn't respect me. My kid's a sociopath. My kid has no empathy. And then we intervene from that interpretation. A massively helpful thing in any part of life, and you can't use it in the moment until you've really practiced it out of the moment. A kid has this Nerf gun. I said, don't point it at your sister. They pointed at your sister. I agree. Bad behavior.
What is my most generous interpretation? If you really force yourself to answer that, you do something powerful. You separate identity from behavior. Okay, you probably say some version of, I have a good kid who's unable to control themselves with a Nerf gun, and every sibling has some anger toward another sibling, and this seemed like an opportune moment to take that out.
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