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
OK, then this is I'm excited. I'm excited. We can put the third thing out there. I'll leave everyone with a cliffhanger with the third thing. This one's important. That one's even more important. OK, so I think first of all, again, and we have to understand before we intervene. So how do we build resilience? Well, what is resilience? Right. And we have to really understand that.
And I think that resilience really is our ability to tolerate hard things. And the word tolerate is important because we all think it's the ability to get through it. The getting through happens when it happens.
And the truth is the longer you can tolerate something, not something toxic, that is so not what I'm talking about, or abusive, but the longer you can tolerate something hard, the success is going to find itself and it's going to be more likely because you were able to stay in the hard place.
I can give you two different examples very concretely. Right. So this is something I teach to a lot of parents in one of my favorite, my frustration tolerance workshop, which is relevant for school, for everything. So let's say, and I'll say my three-year-old is doing a puzzle. I can't do it. You do it for me. You do it for me. This is a good example. Right. And as a parent, I get it.
You've gotten home. You're like, this is like the last thing.
I was going to have a nice night with my kid. I get it. But I'm really driven by impact. And so I actually get this sick joy when my kid is on the verge of a meltdown.
Yes. Especially when I've been working a lot. Because I'm like, if I'm going to spend 20 minutes with my kid, I'm going to make it count. And it's nice if I'm there for a pleasant 20 minutes, of course. But if I want to have impact, I literally can picture my impact on him.
But in a way, I think that's a really important reframe. Especially if you're a parent who travels a lot or you're not around a lot, to be like, wait, I can have impact. It's not easy. It's certainly not convenient. That's the one word parents need to know. Having kids is not fun or convenient in most situations. It's not fun. at all. And this is like your, it's like your Super Bowl right now.
I guess this is your opportunity, you know, because my kid and how I respond to the puzzle is not going to remember anything about the puzzle. Their body, not from that one time, but from patterns is going to be developing expectations around what can I do when things get hard?
Yeah, and what should I expect? What is my self-talk? A parent's words become a child's self-talk.
Especially when paired with an emotional situation. So when I'm frustrated, did I have someone come? And I always say like frustration is now like super bright. Do I expect someone to come and turn off the light? No frustration. Or do I expect someone to come and by the way they're present with me, they dim, they dim the light. So it's just not so blinding. That's emotion regulation.
Like, that's the best it gets. There are drugs that will do that better for you, but they have, you know, that's not what we recommend for people long term. Like, when we're talking about true emotion regulation, we're talking about a dimmer. Because it's impossible to deal with something when it's a 10 out of 10. Even 9 out of 10 is really hard.
Once you get to an 8 or a 7, it's not pleasant, it's not convenient, but you... you start to be able to tolerate it. And from there, you can, you know, get maybe to a six or a five. That's the goal for our kid. So I'll model this. My kid is freaking out about the puzzle.
Now, to be clear, are there some times that I'd be like, I'm giving myself permission to do the puzzle because I can't deal with this? Of course, I'm a normal human. Everybody has to give that permission to themselves.
Like zero. No, no, no, no. Everyone listening to what I'm saying, don't think like I actually do this all the time.
And that will eventually get to point three. And I wouldn't wish Dr. Becky as a real parent on any kid. It's just like... You learn the most, I'm sure you too in life, you learn the most from people who struggle and repair. Of course. But here's this moment, and I can go through an older kid example too because it's not as obvious, but my kid is frustrated.
My kid's going to be frustrated for the rest of their life in higher stakes situations. They're going to be given something from a boss and be like, I don't know how to do this. And I actually don't, first of all, I definitely don't want my kid when they're 25 to call me and be like, can you do my project for me? I definitely don't want that. I don't want them to be indignant.
How could this person have? I want them to have some type of weight. I don't know what I'm going to do, but I have a feeling I can just think this through or get a little further. So that's what I want there. That is not unrelated to the pattern of how I interact now. Wow. So I could say, here's the piece. Once in a while, I do that. Not great for long-term resilience.
So here's what I might do, okay? And my kid is starting to have a tantrum. And even he's saying, do the piece. I can't do it. I'm going to say, sweetie, sweetie, this is so hard. This is so hard. And I have real kids. It's not like they are going to say to me, oh, that's so helpful to hear. No, it's not going to happen. They're going to still freaking out.
But their reaction is different than the power of my intervention. Also two separate things. I might say this. I might say, oh, so many pieces. I don't know where it goes. Does it go here? Does it go here? Does it go here? And if my kid is like, do it for me. I really, and I've said this to my kid. Listen, sweetie, I'm not going to do it for you. Here's why.
Showing 1101–1120 of 3,434 · page 56 of 172
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