Protocols for Excellent Parenting & Improving Relationships of All Kinds | Dr. Becky Kennedy

welcome to the huberman Lab podcast where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday [Music] life I'm Andrew huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and Opthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine my guest today is Dr Becky Kennedy Dr Becky Kennedy is a clinical psychologist specializing in parent child relationships she received her degrees and did her training at Duke University and Columbia University in New York she is the author of the bestselling book good inside a Guide to Becoming the parent you want to be she is also the founder and creator of an online learning platform also called good inside at which parents and parents to be can learn the best possible parenting skills that are grounded in the fields of Clinical Psychology that have been proven to work in the real world and that can allow people to navigate common sticking points in parent child relationships during today's discussion you will learn a tremendous amount of actionable knowledge of about what it is to be a good parent this is a conversation that pertains not just to parents and parents to be but also uncles aunts grandparents and also those of you not planning to or who do not want children I say that because while everything we discussed today is grounded in the discussion around parent child relationships it indeed pertains to all of us and relationships of all kinds including romantic relationships friendships workplace relationships and our relationship to self Dr k Kennedy defines for us and makes clear and actionable what the exact job of good parenting is and how that relates to other relationships that we might have she explains how to set healthy boundaries and in fact defines exactly what healthy boundaries are there's a lot of misconception about that we also talk a lot about empathy and the need to make children and ourselves feel safe in all kinds of relating we discuss how to navigate disagreements and arguments apologies and punishments reward and on and on all framed within a real world realtime context what I mean by that and what I think really sets apart Dr Becky Kennedy's work from so much else that you'll see out there on parent child and other types of relationships is that she makes what to do and say and what not to do and say in a variety of real world contexts very clear such that you can access that knowledge and do those specific things and avoid those specific things even when things get tense in fact especially when things get difficult or tense by the end of today's episode you will have learned a dozen or more very potent clinically backed tools to navigate parent child relating including your relationship to your own parents alive or dead and your relationship to self before we begin I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford it is however part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to Consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public in keeping with that theme I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast our first sponsor is matina matina makes loose leaf and ready to drink yerbamate I often discuss ybba mate's benefits such as regulating blood sugar its high antioxidant content the ways that it can improve digestion and possible neuroprotective effects I also drink yamate because I love the taste while there are a lot of different choices of yamate drinks out there I love matina because again they have the no sugar variety as well as the fact that both their loose leaf and their can varieties are of the absolute best quality so much so that I decided to become a partial owner in the company although I must say even if they hadn't allowed me to do that I would be drinking matina is the cleanest tasting and best yerba mate you can find I love the taste of brewed loose leaf matina yerbamate and I particularly love the taste of maa's new canned cold brew zero sugar yerbamate which I personally help 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first learned about Aeropress well over 10 years ago go and I've been using one ever since Aeropress was developed by Alan Adler who was an engineer at Stanford and I knew of alen because he had also built the so-called aobi frisbee so he was sort of famous in our community for developing these different Feats of engineering that turned into commercial products now I love coffee I'm somebody that drinks coffee nearly every day usually about 90 to 120 minutes after I wake up in the morning although not always sometimes if I'm going to exercise I'll drink coffee first thing in the morning but I love love love coffee and what I've personally found is that by using the arero Press I can make the best possible tasting cup of coffee I don't know what exactly it is in the Aero press that allows the same beans to be prepared into a cup of coffee that tastes that much better as compared to any other form of Brewing that coffee even the traditional French press the Aero press is extremely easy to use and it's extremely compact in fact I take it with me whenever I travel and I use it on the road hotels even on planes I'll just ask for some hot water and I'll Brew my coffee or tea right there on the plane with over 55,000 fstar reviews arero press is the best reviewed coffee press in the world if you would like to try Aeropress you can go to Aero press.com huberman that's a r o p s.com huberman to get 20% off any Aeropress coffee maker Aeropress ships in the USA Canada and over 60 other countries in the world again that's Aero press.com / huberman to get 20% off and now for my discussion with Dr Becky Kennedy Dr Becky Kennedy welcome thank you so excited to be here I have a lot of questions for you and as I mentioned in my introduction much of what we are going to discuss today relates to parent child relating but pertains to relationships generally so people with children without children who don't want children hopefully there aren't people that hate children but for all people uh out there with children or not planning them or not relationships are really just fundamental to who we are and I actually place relationships including relationship to self in what we now think of as the six pillars of mental health physical health and performance um sleep nutrition exercise relationships clearly vital to all aspects of life so I'd like to start off by just asking for all of us are there some simple or perhaps not so simple questions that uh we can reflect on that give us a sense of you know how good a parent we are or would be based on I don't know our our previous parent child relationships our relationship to self you know like what kind of things come to Bear when we think about really healthy relationships um I can you know start rattling off a list of what I imagine they could be but what are are your thoughts like what are the what's the parameter space as as we say how should we think about relationships besides just oh you know I either like this person or don't or I feel good around them or I don't or separating how I feel about them versus how they make me feel you knowbe we can drill a little deeper below the the kind of U more superficial stuff that we often see out there the first thing that comes to mind when you say that is this word sturdiness and to me when someone says like what is good inside as an approach and that's always the first word that comes to mind and I know it's like an odd word it's not a word we like use a lot although I do think most people when you say that person's like a really sturdy person I think we all have some connotation or feeling at least of what that means and I use it a lot being a sturdy parent being a sturdy leader I talk a lot about the similarities to Parenting and kind of being a pilot of a plane and and that word sturdi always comes up and so I remember a little while ago someone pushed me they're like what's your definition of what that means and at that point I thought wow I should probably have a definition given I I use it a lot but what I think it really means is inability to be connected to yourself and to someone else at the same time and I think that is really the definition of sturdy leadership and that is the key thing that's present in a healthy relationship that at once I kind of know my values what I want what I need I feel like I can be true to that and at the same time I can kind of connect to someone else who probably has different wants and needs and maybe even slightly different values at the same time and the thing that that lead leads me to next is what I think about is like family jobs and a parent job so in almost any other place you could assume if I'm getting a new job at this company like there's just no way I could do my job well if I don't know what my job is right if you go to your desk and your boss like have a good day do a good job and there's no job description you'd be like I like that's impossible but over and over with parents if I say to them well what is your job with your kid or when your kid is having a tantrum or they hit or they're rude or they lie to your face or anything like what is your job in that moment most people very well-intentioned educated people who would never ever take a job if they didn't have a job description they look at me they're like I have I have no idea so how can we do it well how can we then perform it to a place to get to the outcomes we want if you don't have the foundation of what your job is and to me I I I thought a lot about it I think parents actually have two jobs and it relates to sturdiness so you'll you'll connect it where one of our jobs is boundaries and to me boundaries are things we tell people we will do and they require the other person to do nothing and that's like really important because a lot of times we think we're setting a boundary when actually we're making a request and boundaries keep us connected to ourselves they represent our values and our wants and our needs and in a parent child relationship they also keep our kids safe if I just know in a simple way like my kids watched enough TV today and they really have to get to bed and I know that like I don't want them to stay up late I kind of know what my family needs I have to set a boundary but the other part of my job is like empathy and validation which is a way of connecting to someone else where you see someone else's feelings and experience as real you don't agree with it probably you don't necessarily condone the behavior that's the repres presentation of the feelings but the feelings themselves you need to connect to and I feel like those are our two jobs as parents and that's really the way to be a sturdy leader and to be in a sturdy healthy relationship with your kids wow so much there uh and I love it uh and here's one of the reasons I love it this notion of sturdiness something that I don't think we hear enough about um you know we hear about resilience grit um also important terms um but sturdiness as as you've described it and the job of parenting um really seems to include a lot of um verbs not just nouns and adjectives and I and I'm a huge fan of verbs because biology and to some extent psychology um yes also psychology is all about verbs um and so the labels often are um mysterious but sturdiness it you know just sends a clear message of of something that um doesn't budge easily um but then as you describe the job of being a parent having boundaries and I'd like to drill into that a little bit more what how you view boundaries um but also empathy uh it's not a walled off um picture it's one that that is semi-permeable um also uh and I confess I'm a bit obsessed with um old school psychoanalytic theory not as the the the be all end all of psychology but but it also suggests um like this other other relationship like I'm a person I have a self you're a person you have a self this is the opposite of codependency where obviously dependency and two people being quote unquote codependent can be healthy in the context of relying on one another but uh as I understand it when one person has a self and another person doesn't have a self or this notion of merging not just in romantic relationships but child parent relationships you know I'm best friends with my mom or dad is that a good thing I don't know but this notion of other other relationships it's like I myself you're a self and we each see each other as another um anyway I I think there's so much to explore here so valuable um you mentioned that boundaries are something that we do and that the requires that the other do nothing um can we go a little bit further into that because um it's a beautiful concept and um this notion of boundaries but like uh gaslighting narcissism and all the other things that we hear about nowadays I think is are often badly misunderstood so tell us more about boundaries and uh how that looks in the in the action sense of it and this is all so connected to what you're saying that other other relationship I'm a person you're a person and so many times that's actually is what gets merged and so my kid gets upset that I say they can't watch another show and and apparent really in that moment it's like they're whose feelings are whose like they were upset was I was upset a second ago I thought I should set the boundary and now all of a sudden I'm changing my mind there is this complete role kind of fusion and merger which is one of the main reasons that kids get actually really scared and escalate their behavior because they don't have a sturdy leader when they really need one right so boundaries are what we tell someone we will do and they require the other person to do nothing I like this definition for a lot of reasons I'm just very practical so it allows me after I set a boundary to like assess was that a boundary or not right because let's take um let's take the TV example it's whatever time at night my kid has just watched a show and they know they were supposed to watch one show and then you know turn off the TV I hear from parents a lot my kid doesn't listen or my kid doesn't respect my boundaries and I'll say okay like that sounds hard let's get into that so then they'll say so I told my kid to shut off the TV they just kept watching they just kept on I told my kid to stop jumping on the couch and they kept jumping they don't respect my boundaries they don't listen to me this is like a beautiful example of like this is a problem I agree but this is not a boundary problem you made a request of of your child and frankly if you have your I'm making this up 7-year-old watching TV I'm not so good at putting away TV in a phone at night like it's just hard for me to do so your seven-year-old probably is just you know addicted to what's ever happening and we're kind of asking our kid to do our job for us because we don't want our kid to be mad at us or whatever it is a boundary in that situation would be saying O you didn't put off the TV look by the time I get over there if you haven't turned off the TV and I don't want to do this but I will I will take the remote out of your hand and shut it off a boundary is saying O after my request doesn't work can you get off the couch you can jump on the floor look if by the time I get over there you haven't gotten off the couch I will pick you up that is like I was say I'm not going to put the success of my intervention in my like seven-year-olds hand I care too much about my own needs and my own role as a as a leader in my home to do that right same thing with let's say in-laws my mother-in-law doesn't respect my boundary show always shows up without calling now I don't want to get to this point there's a lot of things in a relationship we can do before we get to this point but if that's really a boundary and I have a very kind of intrusive mother-in-law a boundary would be saying look this is going to be awkward and I know you mean well but the next time you come unannounced I will come to your car and say oh this time doesn't work for us you cannot come in and I will go back into my house and close the door like now there's going to be lots of feelings around that but you are now setting a true boundary and when we say our kids don't listen those are often situations not all of them but there's a big percentage where I'm actually not setting a boundary early enough and in a sturdy enough way which is what my kid needs because at that point they simply don't have the skills to inhibit and urge and they need me to be the boundary for them we hear sometimes that U kids are craving rules they're craving boundaries um I don't know I was kind of a wild Adolescent and teenager um maybe a little more than wild I I don't recall ever craving rules I but I do recall paying attention to their lack of presence so what of that um you know is this notion that kids really want and crave rules and boundaries is that is that sort of a uh I don't know projection that we put on to them um and and I'm not exploring this just just for fun I'm exploring it because I think that one thing that's very helpful in setting boundaries especially with kids is the idea that gosh even if it's a bit painful to see them in discomfort there's that empathy piece that you talked about before that empathic Attunement can um get in the way of boundaries right these are and they're not mutually exclusive but these are somewhat competing forces set at times so if we if we know or if we can acknowledge or at least explore this idea that rules are deep down what they really want not just what they need yes um maybe it would help yes and I think by the way in my taking you know the remote away or taking my kid off the couch just to be clear if I do that to my kid like they are not going to say oh mom you are the best mom in the world thank you they are going to cry and scream and that's where boundaries and empathy those two parts of our job actually do always go together I think they're actually Partners they're not actually at odds because as soon as my kid is upset what I would say to them is oh you wanted to jump on the couch it's not as much fun on the floor oh you really wanted to watch another show you didn't even want it this big you wanted to watch it this big it sounds crazy because you're like wait why am I empathizing with that feeling they just kind of disobey no they're two different things I'm doing my job and setting a boundary they're actually doing their job and feeling their feelings that's actually their job the only way you can ever learn to regulate a feeling is through feeling the feeling so they're doing their job now I'm going to validate and this is how kids learn emotion Reg ation boundaries they feel I validate I hold the boundary over and over and over so do kids crave rules and I I think one of the issues is that most parenting approaches have one or the other and I think they're both very incomplete strategies if you just lead with rules right I don't know who said it definitely wasn't me like what is it rules without relationship lead to Rebellion yeah that's what happens right so that's not good but I see this stage we've swung the other direction it is also not a complete parenting strategy when your kid's jumping on the couch to do nothing if you think that's dangerous and to say oh you really want to jump jump jump and such big feelings like that is not what kids need I think kids crave boundaries and they crave feeling seen and understood because as kids are growing up like I think the questions they're always asking parents even though of course they never say this it's just am I real and am I safe every interaction that's what they're asking us the reason we have to validate their feelings when they're upset even though they're so upset just that their string cheese broke whatever it is is feelings don't have markers like blood or like they don't know and so when we say oh you wanted your string cheese to be together what we're really saying is the things you experience inside of you are real but kids are also desperate to know like how far do things go no one likes to feel boundaryless as a kid that's terrifying right and so when we set a boundary we actually say to a kid like I will always protect you like I won't let things get so far out of control so I do think I don't know if it's rules but kids crave connection and I think boundaries and kind of validation and empathy they are the two forms of connection that kids yeah are really desperate for what about rewarding kids and here rather than um start off by asking you know what are the best ways to reward kids and healthy ways I will ask that in a moment um how can we uh evaluate the notion of of Rewards or incentives um through this lens of sturdiness boundaries and empathy yeah um because you know I could imagine you know a reward that's outsized in comparison to what a kid did you know okay great you know you you took your plate to the kitchen sink after dinner um you know you get $1,000 obviously out of scale extreme example but just by way of example um you know screw up their reward mechanisms for for for life if you ask me that everything I know about reward and neuroplasticity says that that that would occur but but this idea that you know you can incentivize kids if if you turn off the TV now then you definitely can watch tomorrow night whereas if you don't you can't like so you're sort of merging reward and potential punishment um you know it how do we bound rewards um and uh how do we take into account that when we start adding rewards to scenarios that that we're we're mixing and matching life experience for them you know okay so now doing what I'm told do I always expect a reward um if the reward doesn't come next time we know based on reward prediction error we tend to be worse off emotionally than had we never received a reward dur in the first place again pretty pretty vast parameter space but what are your thoughts on best ways to reward kids for standard good behavior yeah versus achievement versus elimination of bad behavior y maybe so three categories I think you're asking a much bigger question or I'm GNA I think you are which is like what do what why do parents think we need to reward kids I think that's why do we think we need to punish kids and this is actually where everything I work on started from because the way I was trained to work with parents I went to you know the best gold standard evidence-based program and it was all about timeouts and punishments and rewards and stickers and ignoring and praise and and honestly when during the training for the years after I kind of practiced this way my I feel like that you know this better than I am so I shouldn't even say this but like that left part of my brain like logic and linearity I was just like this is amazing oh my goodness we're going to get more of the good behavior and we're going to not get the bad behavior and and I'd start teaching this to parents my private practice and there was this little thing in me I don't even know I was like I don't know about this I don't know and it get louder and louder to the point that in a session I literally said to a parent in front of me I was just like telling them how to do a timeout and I said I'm sorry I I don't believe anything I've been telling you that's literally what I said cuz I just it was so loud and there were it was obviously super awkward but it led me to I feel like from this first principal's way be like there are a million assumptions that we have about raising kids and I think about relationships and if I just strip them back what do I be left with and what would be a new building from there and rewards and like punishments to me are these assumptions that we have somehow converted from like the fiction shelf of the library in my mind to like the non-fiction shelf as like truths and I I kind of rail against all of them so I think I think the question if that's okay to go that direction to me is like why do we think we need to reward kids and is there actually a better system system both shortterm and long-term I'm incredibly long-term greedy in my parenting approach CU at the end of the day 18 and up is where things really matter not really matter I mean they all matter but I'd rather you know I want to help my kids become sturdy resilient adults but I'm short-term greedy too cuz I'm a realist like I just can't deal with like all these difficult moments you get both for sure without rewards and punishments so I don't know what might someone tell me they give a reward for do you want to use the like clearing the table or example let's start that there it kind of goes back to like believing kids are inherently good inside I really think it goes back to that if you really believe kids are inherently good inside which by the way when I strip back every assumption the only thing I was left was that literally the only thing and then I started to think okay so if they're good inside why do they do so many annoying things like all the time but that gave me a gap and I feel like that is very exciting to have a gap like why do people who are goodness I do such bad things right adults or kids and to me right kids are born with all the feelings and none of the skills to manage those feelings like period and we've often thought therefore when feelings feelings without skills come out in behaviors I think that's what bad behaviors are feelings or urges or something without a skill to manage them or without access to the skill maybe in that moment either way and then we end up punishing Behavior but the behavior was just a sign of the lack of skill so I can't imagine anyone thinking I could teach my kid to swim by punishing them for not swimming like I think someone would say that was crazy um and but that's kind of how we raise kids and then we think rewarding them is going to be effective but it actually leads over and over to what you said I've seen these parents over and over my private practice my 14-year-old literally won't pick up their clothes from the floor unless I give them $5 like how did I get here and I'm like yeah that's that's a problem but I saw how they got there so let's take clearing you know their plate like I know this is going to sound cheesy but kids do have something in them where they want to feel like a purposeful meaningful part of society they do impact drives adults and it drives kids it's not the same type of rewarding as playing fortnite it's a totally different system but I think the question is like why do we think we have to bribe kids or you know kind of trick them into doing things that are kind of like basic part parts of human life and so if we take that and my kid chronically isn't clearing their plate I could say to them look every time you clear a plate I'm going to give you a sticker after five stickers you're going to get I don't know whatever it is to me like a much more just effective way is I'd say to my kid hey I know you know like clearing a plate is just one way of being part of this family and taking care of stuff I know you know that we're on the same team I say that phrase we're on the same team right we are um something's getting in your way of remembering I'm going to assume I like like the most generous interpretation that to me allows you to separate someone's bad behavior from their good identity then I going say what would help you remember we literally did this with my son who always had his towel on the floor and I was just like I bet he just doesn't remember he literally doesn't see it we talked about it and he's like we talked about him putting a Post-It literally something simple like a Post-It on my door that just says pick up my towel he wrote it in his own handwriting right trying to facilitate him like solving his own problems and now he has a much higher rate of picking up his towel like I guess I could have said every time you pick up your towel you'll I don't know get a dollar or whatever it is but again it makes me think I'm not building the generalizable skill that way I'm just kind of offering something at the end which sets me on this kind of awful cycle that I think kind of misses the point I'd like to take a brief moment and thank one of our sponsors and that's ag1 ag1 is a vitamin mineral probiotic drink that also contains adaptogens I I started taking ag1 way back in 2012 the reason I started taking it and the reason I still take it every day is that it ensures that I meet all of my quotas for vitamins and minerals and it ensures that I get enough Prebiotic and probiotic to support gut health now gut health is something that over the last 10 years we realized is not just important for the health of our gut but also for our immune system and for the production of neurotransmitters and neuromodulators things like dopamine and serotonin in other words gut health is critical for proper brain functioning now of course I strive to consume healthy Whole Foods for the majority of my nutritional intake every single day but there are a number of things in ag1 including specific micronutrients that are hard to get from Whole Foods or at least in sufficient quantities so ag1 allows me to get the vitamins and minerals that I need probiotics prebiotics the adaptogens and critical micronutrients so anytime somebody asks me if they were to take Just One supplement what that supplement should be I tell them ag1 because ag1 supports so many different systems within the body that are involved in mental health physical health and performance to try ag1 go to drink a1.com huberman and you'll get a year supply of vitamin D3 K2 and five free travel packs of ag1 again that's drink a1.com huberman I love the idea that kids want purpose um and am I correct in wondering if that goes back to this am I real component of the am I real am I safe yes like one way that we know we are real is our ability to impart change on the world around us I don't want to get too abstract here but you know as a neuroscientists have often sat back and reflected like all the emotions we feel like no one sees that or knows that unless we say something we write something we sing something we shout something you know all the forms of expression just like none of our um our dreams our creative uh insights or or wishes um exist except inside US unless we transmute them into something in the real world so there does seem to be something about having this nervous system from a time we're really young like it it's seeing our effect on the world that that really makes us real and on others and um I love the idea that well and I must say I absolutely believe in my heart and I just feel it as a feeling that kids are inherently good inside like I just I can't imagine any other version of that but does that mean that there are people out there who believe that kids are inherently bad or or at least not good I mean like how could be but then again maybe I'm just naive uh I don't know if anyone consciously believes that but when I go back to that system I was first trained in rewards and punishments like it feels like a system of Behavioral control and to me like I've always thought about control and trust is opposites so I only control what I don't trust so nobody said to me that program by the way Becky everything you're learning Here We Believe kids are bad inside and so we do this thing but well if I don't trust my kid and if I don't trust they inherently have the things in them to do good by the way that's not going to happen naturally that's why we have a big job as a parent to coach our kids to bring that out to set boundaries when they can't do it and so many other things but I don't believe anyone would say yeah it's cuz they're bad inside but there is a nature where you're constantly interacting with your kid from that other system looking at them like I don't trust you I don't trust you and when you do bad things I cannot hold on to the fact that you have a good identity that's why I'm giving you a punishment that's why I'm sending you away to your room and so if I'm reflecting back to you constantly that you are just your latest behavior that I don't trust you that I kind of have to bribe you to do very basic human things well our kids form their identity from our reflection of them and so then we're this is what really compelled all of this I'm like we're raising generation after generation of kid kind of saying to them like you're kind of a bad untrustworthy kid and then we wonder why we have such high rates of like massive mental health problems well like I there's some linearity there I'm curious about this notion of impingement I I've heard about this um you know this idea that you know when we're young we're forging life deciding you know do I like the way this tastes or not tastes you know by the way I still hate anchovies I don't need to be asked again to know the answer but when you're young you know we're encour enage to do things like eat your broccoli taste the anchovy and some parents it seems are very comfortable with the idea of allowing their children to have their feelings and their wishes they their as I always say the nervous system seems to be divided into yum yucks and me Mees I guess the plur will be me um yum yucks and Mees I mean it's more complicated than that but like with people where either like yeah I really like them or no something's off there like you know um so it's not that much more nuanced than that the brain's got to make decisions afterwards after all excuse me so um you know kids have their yums yucks and Mez and then we've got our our ideas about what they need to do in order to progress through life often inherited from our parents and hopefully Modified by the wonderful work that you're doing and writing about and in your your program um that we're talking about here but you know how much space should we allow for kids to be un impinged like like you don't want to eat you don't want to eat what we're eating for dinner like okay I'm not going to cook you an entire new dinner but then I guess like you might go to bed hungry sounds harsh right um but the other version is okay what would you like for dinner well I prefer let's say they pick a healthy option they prefer pasta not chicken okay we won't do the ice cream chicken you know uh thing um do we do it right like how much impingement I don't want to watch a movie with the family I want to play in my room you know at some level you know I've heard it both ways that impingement is needed for safety and life progression but there's times when it it's uh it's more subtle than that it's not about safety and life progression it's not about going to school or not going to school homework or no homework it's about like do you want to come with us to the park you want to play at home in your room how often should we impinge um how do we know um this this kind of the the tricky the tricky areas of parenting that I think um because it doesn't fall into the extremes yeah I love this question that's a word I don't often hear actually what impingement like can you act like what like like impinging on yeah like impinging on the child's in um inherent natural desires or aversion to things got it right like you say hey we're going over so and so's house and they say you know I don't like their kids you go listen you got to learn to play with other kids and go no I don't like their kids you say did something happen and so we're not talking about a dangerous sit no I don't like I just really want to stay home this is a great so are we going to impinge on their I mean because we're teaching them either way we're teaching them something you got to do stuff you don't want to do even if you don't like it and here again we're ruling out the possibility that there's something unsafe about the environment psychologically or physically unsafe or but at the same time we're teaching them um hey you're I see you I hear you but you know your desires might not be right there there's actually a kind of an like a tacit message of the way you feel might not be the best gauge of what's best for you which sends a complicated message to a kid totally so this is again where I think at good inside like family jobs are so useful family jobs to me when I used to meet with parents and like they describe a situation I feel like 90% of the time that's where I'd start because then that flows from there it's like a framework so what is my job I'm the one who sets boundaries like I am the one who makes key family decisions obviously as our kids get older they they should be making some decisions to no one likes to feel controlled but key decisions and my job is to validate my kids experience this is actually complicated because again over and over we think that validating my kids's experience means they're going to dictate a decision my boundaries don't dictate my kids feelings and my kids feelings should not dictate my boundaries they're just two equal things so this is a great example my kids are like you know I don't like playing with those kids and I can I just stay home with let's just say Grandma was home can I just stay home I'm like I just think it's important to go as a family but my kid doesn't want to go there's nothing dangerous okay to me this is that exact way of putting family jobs into action sweetie like and to me this phrase I wish every parent could say this to their kid I believe you if you want to make a kid feel real and confident for Life confidence comes from the experience of being believed because that's how you I for me confidence is self trust it's not feeling good about yourself it's self trust I really do know the way I feel so let's say I say to my son in that situation it's I believe you I'd start that way I believe you look I I know you want to play football all day and the kid around your age hates football like that would probably be lowest on your list of types of kids you'd want to hang out with for the afternoon I totally believe you and in this family we know that sometimes we have to do things we don't love to do we do that for a family experience I say this to my kid all the time you know also just to end up being a adult you just have to end up practicing as a kid doing things you don't want to do things that are boring things that aren't your preference so you know you notch in your belt for that so you don't have to thank me and and also I know you have it in you to do your best to be polite and engaged like I just I know you're a good kid and this isn't what you want and I know we're going to get through it now if it's really hard maybe young hey let's create a sign like can you look at me and go when you feel like you're kind of at this and then me and you we're going to go to the bathroom I'm going to give you a hug and right I'm going to say I know this isn't what you want and when we get home we could watch that football game whatever it was right because what we often do is we leave ourselves with two choices with kids we either say fine stay home their feelings actually just dictated the decision that's not helpful for them I don't want my kid to learn in life when I don't want to do something people twist and turn to make that thing not happen like that's disturbing for adulthood expectations but then we do the other thing which is like you are so selfish just because you don't have a friend your age doesn't mean that you can't come with us so we either let their feelings dictate or we think our boundaries kind of give us the right to be mad at our kid right like to do both is so important and so that's where I think to me when I hear impingement like I actually think that's that is the exact space where you have the most bang for your buck as a parent like it's not enjoyable and again if I have my beautiful intervention with my son do not think my kid will look at me and say I love how you explain that that was so beautiful no he's going to roll his eyes my job is not to take the bait cuz I'm an adult and to also hold hope I think that's really important this Con concept of I'm validating my kids feelings where they are today but I need to be the one to hold hope that they can cope with it if I can't name to my kid I know you're going to get through it they're not going to be able to see that kind of next more mature version of themselves and I actually think it's the same as your best boss you know was like I know you don't want to go on this trip I I don't whatever it is I know this presentation topic isn't the one you would have chosen and there were 10 things and this was literally number 10 I totally get that and it stinks and I'm not taking anything away from that and this is the thing I need you to do and I know something about you like when you put your mind to something you always do a great job and like it's probably not going to be enjoyable but I do know you're going to do a great job on this like that's like the boss you want amazing are you adopting children by the way I'm I actually I finished college and actually I actually consider Andrew you adult children uh what I'm hearing is don't dictate their behavior with and I'm going to underline and bold dictate don't dictate their behavior you're going to do this because I said so that's dictatorship but at the same time don't quash the emotion behind the resistance kind of acknowledge it make them feel real um I believe you I I love this phrase amazing and I love your definition of confidence if people didn't hear that we're definitely going to repeat it again and we're going to we're going to etch it into your neural circuitry because I love that it's it's a it's a self trust yes and this notion of giving hope you're giving them a an incentive that's based on a reward that's actually good for them that they can translate to other situations as well uh wow um can I double click on reward because you know what made me think I didn't think until you said that like I think in a situation we'd be tempted to say like and if you go and you're polite I'll give you 20 extra minutes of Roblox right that's like and first of all let me to say something like whatever I say to you like for listeners like it's not like I do this stuff all the time with my actual kids I'm the first one sometimes to be like here's your thing I have to dangle you a little section in the comment section on YouTube where your kids can no I'm just kidding exactly your kids are forbidden no oh wait that's wait that's dictating we understand why you I believe that you would want to comment um but but we're going to trust uh we're going to let you know why it's a it's good for you if you don't anyway I'll practice this on someone else's kids but the reward like the when your kid ends up seeing themsel capable of doing something they didn't previously think they could do you know better than me like I feel like that is like one of the best rewards even if it's getting through a social situation or I think about this a lot with you know my little kid is I don't know like struggling with a puzzle or something and I could just do it for them or if I help them kind of regulate oh this is a hard puzzle and you can take a break I I just know you're going to figure it out today I just know it and then because of that they get there that feels in your body like that is the best kind of reward and it's the type of reward that works for kids in adulthood when they're in a job we want them to be motivated by the feeling going to have of Pride not be saying hey I finished my thing early do I get a bonus to their boss like that's that's not going to play out as well I love it I um I'm just pausing and shaking my head only because I love it so much um and I just want to make sure that I don't quickly move to the next question without drilling down even deeper into some of these Concepts um I believe you as the feedback uh or response that can instill real confidence over time um not to get too nuanced here but how is it different because I I sense it is different than I hear you I hear you but you're going to do this anyway yes or I hear you but listen in this family yeah um I believe you that the word believe is powerful and I believe there's real power in specific words as is you know like for instance sturdiness again such a such a powerful and underused word I believe you um what do you you're olist what what do you think we're hearing when somebody says I believe you that's different than I hear you I haven't listed these out but I think we all have these like core needs as humans and I think being believed is one of them because it's it's someone else kind of saying you're real that's what I I might not feel what you're feeling but that thing that feels strong to you that nobody can see or measure is real and when I think about the most confident people like I think about this girl who I went to Duke with and she was just brilliant like so smart we were in this seminar it was one of these small classes where this professor was like talking about stuff and like I for once I was like I have no idea what this person's talking about but like I was like no one else was stopping and this girl raised her hand and she said I'm sorry if everyone else is annoying like I have no idea what you're talking about like is there any cuz I usually do and like is there any way you could say that in different way that is like to me the utmost version of confidence that she believed her own experience of confusion was real confusion she didn't think it was a sign she was stupid she she believed it she believed herself that is so confident and I think when someone says I hear you they're they're they it's like a version of listening there's many worse phrases no damage is done when we follow anything but but we tend to in validates that's not good anyway I believe you but is also not going to but there's a million examples of this to me that build confidence and I actually think there's so many situations with kids where they say situations and we worry oh they have low confidence and then we intervene to quote make them feel better which actually is the thing that lowers their confidence because it's like we say to them I don't believe you you're not really feeling the way you feel where I believe you is the exact opposite so like I like to give an example just because it makes it concrete like my will come home and say um I don't know um I was pick last for you know for Dodgeball today I was pick last and something and and they're they're clearly very very sad right and we want to say to them like it's no big deal or everyone's pick last sometimes or but remember yesterday you told me you were pick first for basketball and we think like I need to build up my kids confidence those are confidence I want to say destroying that's reducing interventions cuz a kid is kind of coming to a parent basically saying I'm very very upset that I was picked last and we're saying to a kid no you weren't and they're like but I am and what they learn is this is really terrifying to me is other people are better feelers of my feelings than I am and it has like a million really scary interpersonal I think relationship you know kind of consequences later down later down in life but when a kid says you know I was pick last and nobody even wants me and they all think I'm the worst athlete whatever kids say to sit and say some version of like I'm so glad we're talking about this and I could tell that was a really hard gym class and sweetie like I I believe you you will watch your kid it is crazy to me what parents tell me happen when they say those words to their kids they're like it also just like literally diffused everything and they were like ready to move on like they are just trying to tell you probably like I was feeling something it was a lot it was confusing right our feelings are always hardest when we're alone in them so I was alone in it and I bring it to you when someone says I believe you not only are they giving you that core need they're also just like they're like sitting down with you and it and that's that makes everything better and then meanwhile what a kid feels like when we say I believe you to a hard experience or hard feeling is they're like the feelings that overwhelm me don't overwhelm my parents they can tolerate it they're not scared of me kind of being a loser in gym class one day and if my parent likes me when I have that feeling like I can start to like myself when I have that feeling it's so great because it sounds like it accomplishes both things it makes kids feel real and safe yes real and safe and you know I can't help but ask say because you know how we started off today was that this isn't just about parent child relationships but in friendships in romantic relationships in cooworker relationships that the words I believe you I have to presume based on everything I'm hearing now and feeling inside about it that it's equally effective huge well you know years ago I was on like a podcast early on and to me there are these three lines that kind of all go together when kids are anyone's upset and it's kind of like you start and to me it's like beautiful invitation to have that conversation just to say to someone I'm so glad you're talking to me about this right and then kind of I believe you tell me more and my husband that when he heard it was like you know you could like say those words to me sometimes like I would like that because and I think about the workplace too like you have someone come in they upset about I don't know I got staffed on this or I'm not getting a promotion and I I thought I was like just diffuse it with just I'm so glad you're talking to me about this yeah I've been working nonstop for and just if you say to them like I I believe you cuz we usually don't say to someone I don't believe you but what we'll say is we we defend ourselves in that moment and the way the other person receives it is as if we're saying I don't believe the intensity of the experience you're having and when you do lead with I believe you same thing in a partnership you know like every time I ask you to do something you get really hot and bothered like it doesn't even mean you agree you're kind of just believing I like I like I believe you like tell me more right I believe you that that really upset you and like I'm obviously I have a whole another story in my head but like I hear what you're saying and and I know there's something there and I believe it enough to like be open to hearing more about it I don't know that's like what's best that's what that's what we all want in our in our Partnerships I mean I'm widey I mean what a beautiful acknowledgement that as you pointed out is not agreeing to accept someone else's reality to the extent that you're going to dismantle the the you know the order of the world whatever it is but it's such an opening as opposed to a closing and as you said it's non- defended but it's also boundaried I mean there's just so many things about it that feel good um seem good and and clearly are good you know I don't want to go down the the um tragic Rabbit Hole of trauma but um previous guest on his podcast um you know is defined we should probably Define trauma just because because it gets thrown around a lot trauma an event or set of circumstances um that fundamentally change the way that the brain and nervous system works so that there's a maladaptive response going forward it's not every bad thing that happens but but there are microt traumas sometimes called small T more macr traumas big te again could be multi-event or single event but years ago a different psychologist psychiatrist who's an adolescent um psychiatrist at Stanford said something uh in a seminar that just really struck me which was that at at its core trauma is really about confusion over who's responsible um and and here we're not just talking about the the more Salient examples of like sexual assault that those two of course but you know like if if we get screamed at um or we observe something like third person trauma like the The Logical stance is well okay that was them not me but when this happens especially when we're young the ner system the brain some somehow interprets this as like I was there I had a role in it just by being there so like what was my role and somehow the emotional response becomes one of responsibility even if we know like they're clearly the one that initiated this and so um the reason I'm bringing this up in this context is that it's almost like that lack of belief in self somehow gets rooted in and then that it all feels confusing and then we don't feel safe that's right because it's a confusion about responsibility again going back to this um we go down that rabbit hole for a second please please that's why I raised it I think that I want your think trauma is actually not events it's the way an event gets processed and I I love Gabor M's definition of praa it's not what happens to you it's what happens inside of you right so to me there's an inherent relationality there where events that get proc not any event events with high emotionality let's say that get processed in aloneness become traumatic and I think that's where it gets linked to responsibility so this is actually what my TED Talk was about and why repair is so important um who said this Ronald Fairburn years ago that for kids it is better to be a sinner in a world ruled by God than to live in a world ruled by the devil I think it explains almost everything about Child Development right there going back to goodness also your parent just screamed at you and by the way your parent I scream at my kids everyone's going to scream at their kids it's going to happen Okay that's just the event the event's not going to have the impact what is happening for a kid well we know kids are oriented by attachment they literally need us to survive like they could not survive on their own and so what do you do when the person you're dependent on for safety becomes the source of danger and threat that's very confusing for a child in that moment so they're super hyperaroused they're in this state of you know Terror and then usually after in my house too I just yell at my kid they're kind of alone in their room I'm alone in the kitchen or wherever meanwhile spinning like I'm such a bad parent like I'm Pro you know but meanwhile because I'm so lost in my own guilt I might not be going to my kid and so what happens for my kid if I don't repair after I scream at them or one of these events right well a kid cannot say to themselves my parent just had a bad day then the Badness is in my parent my leader I'm I'm young now right like I don't understand Nuance my leader can't be bad so I must take on the Badness at least then I have control so kids after they're kind of yelled at in the absence of repair they will they really only have two options for how to regulate and feel safe again they can self-blame it's all my fault which is why I feel like most adults when they have a hard time they tell themselves like it's my fault I'm not good enough it's like the legacy of that story from childhood or they use self-doubt maybe that didn't happen maybe I overreacted maybe I can't trust myself again it leads to adults who basically say like did I overreact or let me call five friends let me see if they think what my boyfriend did was a big deal because they can't trust themselves and so trauma trauma what I want every parent to know is they say I left my kid alone and I didn't pick them up at the soccer field is that going to traumatize them and I'll say well that's just the event like did you say to them hey that probably felt scary what was that like H you're right like you were alone now all of a sudden next to the event that that was scary is my story and my connection it got processed in a safe connection it didn't get processed in Al loneness and that's that's a massive massive difference in the scenario you are describing the parent who yelled goes to the child uh having been that child um and perhaps also having been that parent um how do we deal with the fact that sometimes you know we don't want to be around the person that yelled at us it hurt it hurts to receive the care or there's there's a there's a like a textured landscape as opposed to a smooth landscape there like like okay now you're ready for everything to be peaceful I'm still with my feelings I guess that's where the I believe you comes in and that's where the Sorting it through process begins I think it's like what version of a parent comes back to me the the first thing we have to do in a repair process is actually repair with ourselves as a parent really because if you haven't repaired with yourself which to me is kind of separating your identity again from your behavior like okay Becky I'll use myself an example I'm a good parent who just screamed at her son like I did not mess up forever and you see when you try to repair with yourself those two things get collapsed I'm like I messed him up forever I'm a monster wait like I'm a good parent who did something I'm not proud of you can't repair with someone until you've repaired with yourself they feel it from you they actually it usually is like then you're asking for them I'll be like it's okay right like you forgive me right that's not a repair that's like using your child to try to do something we just have to do on our own or with other adults but if I've repaired with myself I'm going to show up in a different way might I have a feisty kid I might like I don't care it's not better that's okay I'm not repairing to get something from my child I'm repairing to give an experience to them so we can also get creative you know your kid is older you text them you slip a door under the note you say okay I just have to say this one thing to me this line really matters to like snatch that self-blame out of a kid's body it's just like I'm sorry I yelled it is it's never your fault when I yell and it's not and people who argue like our ability to regulate our emotions predated our child's existence like that you know like they had they had something they did something and we felt frustrated but that's very different than yelling right and saying that to your kid is so important meanwhile the day you might say by the way let's really figure out how to get out the door in a smoother way you know you could work on whatever they need to work on but the reason I think most kids end up rejecting parents apologies is it's not really repair we're asking our kid for permission to be okay again or our repair sounds like hey I'm sorry I yelled but you know like if you just got ready in time that wouldn't have happened or we say I'm sorry you felt that way I'm sorry you felt that way those are not like none of those are actually repairs and if that's what a kid's been used to they're going to keep a parent more at Bay so is it safe to say that we can always come back to making the kid feel real and safe I believe you is a great place to start and the reason I keep coming back to these these simple things is that simple but very very potent by the way um is that in the real world landscape of parenting family and life things are happening really fast and it's very Dynamic and it's multifaceted I mean we haven't even talked yet about how when there's two parents like the one that didn't yell um when there's multiple siblings when I mean there's you know human dynamics on a one in in other other landscape is is hard enough and then when you start introducing the real world landscape um things happen fast so having something that people can reach to really quickly what I call in the landscape of stress modulation which is something that I'm more familiar with from my labs work is you know real time tools yep real time tools like we're all at our best after meditation vacation M and a good night's sleep but what about real time tools when everything's everything's hectic um so what does a really good apology look like in the real world yeah um because a really good apology in the ideal world of uh Instagram um is yeah I believe you I'm so sorry with no butts no this that but a real apology sometimes is as you're boarding a plane or when there's a bunch of other things that are going on and you haven't even dealt with those yet or when you're on your way to an event or yeah okay so you get it uh what does a really good internal landscape for apology look like like how can we touch into where we need to be and then what are the words that even if we have to try again later and again and again later with that person in this case kid but person more generally um what's the like go-to solid apology so yeah I think you are never going to go wrong saying I believe you to your kid like obviously not have you say it randomly but if they're really upset you yelled at me I believe you like if that's all you can remember you're crushing it I think a realistic repair you have to do something for yourself and like to me it can be a very simple Mantra like to me I'm a good parent who is having a hard time is the one I use honestly over and over just and after I yell at my kid before I'll like go to the bathroom sometimes and I'll say that to myself Becky like I'm a good parent having a hard time and I'll kind of say it as many times as I need until I really do feel something like shift a little in my body it just because again I think that phrase separates what I did from who I am right and then to me a realistic apology it could be super simple if you remember nothing else could just be like I'm sorry I yelled that's that's great if you wanna if you're like I'm feeling it Becky give me that next step I'm you know I'm sorry I yelled just like you I'm working on managing my emotions and you know next time even when I'm frustrated I'm going to try to stay calm something about the next time you know if you want to throw in that it's not your fault kids it seems an odd thing because parents are like why do kids assume it's their fault it is their default position and so it's never a bad thing to throw in but honestly just simply hey I'm sorry I yelled that actually gives them that realness because without saying anything more you're saying that thing you think happened did happen so that's powerful I'd like to take a quick break and thank our sponsor insid tracker insid tracker is a personalized nutrition platform that analyzes data from your blood and DNA to help you better understand your body and help you reach your health goals I've long been a believer in getting regular blood work done for the simple reason that many of the factors that impact your immediate and long-term Health can only be analyzed from a quality blood test a major problem with a lot of blood tests out there however is that you get information back about metabolic factors lipids and hormones and so forth but you don't know what to do with that information with inside tracker they make it very easy because they have a personalized platform that allows you to see the levels of all those things metabolic factors lipids hormones Etc but it gives you specific directives that you can follow that relate to nutrition behavioral modification supplements Etc that can help you bring those numbers into the ranges that are optimal for you if you'd like to try insid tracker you can go to insid tracker.com huberman to get 20% off any of insid tracker's plans again that's insidetracker tocom how do you suggest parents deal with um retorts and rudeness and again let's um extend this to all relationships so you get in your best mindset and by the way I love this I am thing um two of the most important words in any language um when translated to other languages I am blank I am a good this or I am whatever role identity is key to the brain um we know this um you go in and you say I'm really sorry I struggle to regulate my emotions yeah I believe that you're really upset yeah and the kid says I hate you m now earlier you said that good boundaries are about not expecting a change in behavior from someone else they about our own boundaries so um or maybe the I hate you comes from you know listen we're not going to go to so and so's house for a play date today great example I hate you yeah I hate you um so is there ever a case for no response I mean to me the most underutilized parenting strategy is doing nothing literally it's one of my most used strategies because and there's there's there's like really good reason for it especially in this situation so I always to me like I always say we have to understand before we intervene so I know every parent like what do you do in that situation but it's like trying like it's like trying to fix someone's tennis swing before you like look at their tennis swing right like what there could be a lot of problems so again why is a kid saying I hate you and I would ask every parent to just keep this in mind it's a tool and you can't use it in real time eventually you can but we have to say it at like the end of a night when my kid said I hate you what what is my most generous interpretation of why he would say that to me and if you're like any human me included by the way like your least generous interpretation is immediate you're like because he's a sociopath like that's what we say all the time we're like wow or because he's like a horrible kid because he's spoiled because he's nasty it comes easily so that's fine but what is my most generous interpretation and when I don't know I'll push myself to say okay well like I was in a situation with my husband what would lead me to say that I what would lead you to say that to someone that I hate them yeah like they like say something to you like hey Andrew we're not going to be able to you know do this dinner it would have to be some sort of deep betrayal of trust and and when I'm and I have to acknowledge that if I said that to somebody that I really care about or love if as I'm saying I hate you what I'm really saying is I love you so much and that hurt unbelievably at such an unbelievable intensity that what's coming out of my mou say I hate you because if you because if you didn't love them that's right it would have null effect it would be a me it would be it would be a it would be a met but instead it's a oh it hurts so we somehow there's a neural circuit in there that goes you know I whatever insert explicative hate you that's right but what you're really saying is I love you so much yeah and as a consequence that thing you did or said hurts so much that's right and so I think that's like exactly what's going on for a kid or like to me my most generous interpretation in a simple way is my kid when I said we couldn't go to this friend's house that he thought we were going to his friend he was going to sleep over he had like so built it up in his mind he'd like probably like kids do like they have this whole image oh and then we're going to do this and this and like the let down was so intense and again I go back to kids have all the feelings we have and they're born with none of the skills so it takes a lot of it takes like a pretty welldeveloped skill to be really disappointed by the way and surprised right in the moment and like manage it in like a mature way I I'm sure we both know adults who aren't really capable of doing that right so the fact that my seven-year-old is doing that so if I think about it that way we latch on to our kids words as if they're the truth they're not the truth it's not to say they don't matter but they're not the truth the truth is whatever world is under the words like I'm disappointed and I don't know how to manage that so if I think about the outcome like what would where do I want to be what I would love in that situation because the truth is when I say to my kid sorry we can't go to Bobby's house I wouldn't even want it's not normal for my kid to be like oh no problem because like I would I'm just picturing my 25-year-old like trying to get a job and being like Mom oh I didn't get it and then he's like no problem I'm like that's kind of weird like really like that's weird like I'd want you to be disappointed and so what I want my kid to be able to do is to be like I don't know what's the best to gets like oh man I was really looking forward to that that's like ultimate maturity so how do I get from I hate you to oh man I was really like you know looking forward to that the all the things we want to do just like don't even make sense like sending my kid to their room saying like you're such a nasty kid I've never seen any of your friends say that to their parents and I'm good at acting these things out because of course I say these things too but all I'm doing is basically telling my kid the version of themselves I don't want them to be so now I'm further away from that outcome just not effective my kid obviously literally needs to learn some of those skills and practice them we don't think about simulations with kids nearly enough we know that in sports people practice all the time we don't do that with emotion regulation so what do I do in the moment I think the best question here is what do I do outside the moment to help my kid build the skills so they actually have more of a skill the next time that moment comes still I'm a pragmatist what do I do in the moment I hate you I probably would do nothing first when someone is rude to you and they say something nasty I don't know I just like this is one this is my son this is me my son just hurled I hate you it's like sitting between us when we say back to them like you know I hate you or like go to your room we take all the energy from what they said and we just like throw it and then like we have this pingpong match when you do nothing I always picture if this is like that I hate you it just sits between us my kid has a much higher chance of kind of reing what they just said because I'm just kind of sturdy in that moment because I didn't just take it from them and say something to them which just gives them the opportunity to like take what I said and have no responsibility for the first thing they said it's always true in adults when someone says to you like something nasty if you actually just stay there they're kind of like oh shoot like I shouldn't have said that because like it's it's right there so I'd probably say nothing no a couple I don't know if I'd really do that but I'd want to do that let me be clear something else you can say and moment which takes a lot of presence so it's not going to happen right away is just something like Whoa like clearly you're disappointed I get that I believe you and I know there's another way you can say that to me that's actually right back to family jobs I'm validating and I'm setting kind of a boundary in some ways like I know maybe there's a hope there too like I know there's another way if my kid keeps saying I hate you I hate you you're the worst you're the worst I'm going to say listen I love you you're a good kid you're you're having a hard time I I really won't stay in your room while you keep saying this to me and part of that is cuz it's not good for you either like this isn't a good Dynamic I'm going to step outside I'm going to come back and we can talk about it when we're both in a place where we can be a little more respectful or something like that right you don't have to be a punching bag but at least now I'm helping my kid see that he is having a feeling under these words if I can't differentiate the feeling from the behavior how can I expect my kid to ever learn to differentiate those two which is how my kid can actually get to a more regulated place I've sometimes wondered whether or not parents are either afraid of or Not Afraid enough of their kids um I've known some parents that are afraid of their kids because and perhaps as a consequence who knows what the chicken egg uh is there all we know is the parent was alive first the kids learn to control their parents through not necessarily emotional outbursts but the threat of emotional outbursts I've seen this again and again and it's it's a pretty wild thing to observe um and of course as an observer it's far easier than when you're in it but this idea like who like they're like a pot ready to Bo boil over uh um you know like they're going to pop um and I've seen this in teachers in the classroom I I've seen this in so many venues where whether or not the child understands that they're somehow controlling the situation or not that there's just an inherent fear of what could happen and then I think kids feel a certain power but they don't feel safe right I mean how could they right they children yes um so for the parents out there that are afraid of their kids potential responses and or how bad their kid quote unquote might turn out if they were to really lay down the law here I'm using kind of old school language but I listen I grew up you know I'm 48 years old so you know I yeah I mean my parents you know didn't physically abuse us but there might have been a spanking every once in a while or I I don't know what the rule is nowadays or the or the the uh standard out there you know I think I won't say which why I might have taken a smack here or there but not many um and it there was also a lot of love um but clearly um and here I'm not I'm not supporting the use of corporal punishment I want to be very clear um but you know yeah kids can be tough and then also you know it wasn't long into my high school years when I was physically larger than both my parents I never used that to intimidate them but I have to imagine when your kid is larger than you if you were already psychologically afraid of them now you it's clear to both of you that the uh the tables have turned that's right right I'm talking about the the unconscious semiconscious aspects of it I'm not talking about who can you know obviously physical fights there's not something I ever want to see or participate in in a household so this this is an amazing topic like walking on eggshells this is right and this is terrifying to a kid because again if a kid is trying to figure out like am I real and am I Safe Kids do experience feelings in such an intense way because they don't have any of those skills and they're so surprising and they're so visceral that it is scary to them and there're are kind of especially these groups of kids I call them deeply feeling kids that do feel things more intensely and they do have more of these big massive Tantrums they even look animalistic often during they try to scratch you they'll hiss during them they'll growl his really yes there was a I grew up with some biters yeah kids that bite yes that's because again those are just feelings literally uncontained that are exploding out and where do they explode out through your extremities so they that's really what it is and so what will happen and this is this really unfortunate dance and one of the my favorite things to help people turn around is then kids kind of sense from a parent like I really am as toxic as I worried I was right and again if we go back to that pilot thing like I think about a pilot who's like um we have to make an emergency landing we're not going to be able to go to La and we're all going to land in Cleveland whatever it is I picture of the passenger who's like you are going to take us to LA and the Pilot's like okay okay like can you imagine you're like it doesn't matter that this person is pissed like you're the pilot you don't have to keep us happy please keep us safe and if you're in that plane and you're terrified because you're like we have to make an emergency landing I promise you you're way more terrified when you hear this person change the decision because of the threat that a passenger is going to be very very upset and that is actually what we do when we're walking around on eggshells now the alternative to this again we live in this world in parenting where there's a binary where we say and you said it yourself so I'm going to lay down the law like I don't recommend that either like especially with a kid like that that's not going to be the best solution these kids have to be seen as good kids they are good kids and when I we meet with parents of these kids I hear about them and like I always say I hear about them and I have a kid like this so I get it and I'm just like I really like your kid and they're like what I was like I do and they're like and then they usually start crying and they go you're literally the first person in 11 years who's ever said that including like the parents like you like our kid why I'm like they're tenacious they're they know what they want they seem like they have 0% people pleasing in them these kids will change the world but not if they're boundaryless then they'll become tyrants and that's that's really terrifying and I'm going to teach you how to be the sturdy leader which is equally firm as it is warm and that's going to start today and so like here's an example of these deeply feeling kids I think you said something about like watching like a TV show where these kids it feels like they hold the family emotionally hostage right and because if you don't pick the the movie that they want to watch on family movie night they will scream they will cry and they will do that for 3 hours they well other kids after you're like they're they don't Peter out these kids these kids interestingly enough get in an awful cycle with their parents because they have such intense emotions more often which more escalations which tend to get met with invalidation you're so dramatic you ruin everything they are that much more desperate to be believed they escalate further you can understand how that would lead to more distance and invalidation and We're Off to the Races in a bad Direction and I would say to the parents you're going to during family movie night tomorrow night this is what you're going to do and you're going to by the way I would say this is how concrete I get you're going to write this down and you're going to say it to a voice recorder with your own voice and I want you to play it back and see how sturdy you sound and they'll often do it and they'll be like wow I didn't even believe myself when I said that I'm so scared of my child right you're going to do it again and then you're going to do it again and this is this is just like any other skill we practice and you're going to say to your kid look I know in this family you know Bobby usually we let him pick the movie he gets really upset if not we all tonight's going to be different Bobby it is your sister turn to pick the movie and I know you're going to be upset and I just want to tell you exactly what's going to happen and I'm going to in this example I'm saying there's a two Family household which is an assumption but even if there's one say if you're super upset and screaming I'm going to bring you to your room this is important I'm going to sit with you and I'm going to stay there and this is a line that I know from our deeply feeling kid Workshop has really and you have to believe it to say it I am not scared of your feelings and I know parents will say to me but Dr Becky I I am scared of their feelings I'm like yeah you're going to fake it till you make it they they need to hear that because if you think about the image of these kids their feelings feel so overpowering to them they feel more but they're actually more poorest to the world so they both have more coming in and they are actually always terrified of how much of them can flow out and so they feel their feelings in that way it's almost like my tantrum in the house takes up the entire living room that's why you actually have to bring them to a smaller room and you actually have to contain them in that way as a way of kind of saying like it only goes this far like literally I will not let you dictate family movie and always sitting in the front sea and your favorite chair at dinner like it only goes this far and that is truly an act of love and protection and safety for those kids how how often do You observe that these deep deeply feeling kids is that how they refer to um I mean I made up the term so but yeah deeply feeling kids you're you are qualified to to to qualify to so deeply feeling kids um also Express these uh deep feelings in the positive sense um I mean because I can think of some kids I grew up with and I can look at my own experience of um like it's hard to know we don't have a calibration point it's not like body temperature of like how much I feel versus how much you feel we look at the external expression of these things like the the acal gland secrete some tears or not like you know as you were talking about this this thing before I noticed I like wed up a little bit and I'm thinking yeah look I can remember seeing things and feeling things and like whoa it's a really big inside I don't remember screaming at my parents telling them I hate them I probably did at some point but um but I have observed other other kids peers that grew up that clearly fell into this category and have gone on to do REM REM arable things yes remarkable like extraordinary things because it's it's a capacity it that doesn't always skew towards negative expression it can also like immense expressions of love and and you know I think these days that there's a tendency to for unqualified or like truly unqualified people um because they're not trained to do so to slap labels like borderline right splitting like good object bad object splitting and indeed that's that exists in the as a diagnosis and and symptoms of borderline but that um we punish rather than U believe and observe that these things exist there's range in nervous system tuning and affect and um so put simply um do deeply feeling kids also tend to express love and joy and um and positive emotions with the with the same intensity or near same intensity I would say it depends on some like it depends on kind of kind of their stage of development and the nature of the interactions they've kind of received back I think deeply feeling kids I always say are super sensors like if youve won these kids and I've won these kids we live in New York City she will not go into a New York City Garage okay like where we park our car and she's like the smell and I'm the rest of us are like what are you talking about meanwhile I have another friend who lives in a totally different area of Manhattan and she's a deeply feeling kid she's when she's like my daughter the same thing like I actually believe that my daughter smells something that I don't smell like they are super sensors in that way right and she notices the little detail of something now in terms of the intense love I think for these kids their vulnerability sits so close to their shame this is why they get so explosive they almost experience their feelings as attackers which is again why parents can get scared of them and they do because again they feel that feeling so intensely that they have this deep fear of Abandonment of being too much and so they that shame tries to shut it down although it obviously doesn't work and it explodes what I've noticed with deeply feeling kids and this to me is actually like truly my proudest body of work and you mentioned borderline so we'll go there people have said like these sound almost like kids who are like have some predilection to to borderline and obviously having gone to a PhD program where told a lot about invalidating environments and things like that I'm not really one for labels either but I just got so much Insight from my honestly my own kid where I was like wow like she is so different and how she processes things and what she needs and how she responds to my very same interactions as my other kids like they're very different and that fear of Abandonment and being too much it was like it was like there from the start it really feels like it was like there what's so interesting is I feel like through working with her by the way in a very different way because these kids reject almost every typical parenting strategy you go to validate these kids' feelings it's like you're trying to intrude on them and steal their heart because if you think about their porousness they're so terrified of being taken over that when you're like seeing a feeling they feel like you're like seeing into them and so they reject you I always say you can't go in the front door with these kids you've got to like find these side door approaches but now of all my kids she is by far the cuddliest the most loving the most emphatic about our relationship up this trip now I'm going to miss you so much like the idea when she was for that any of that I would say to someone like you are crazy you are talking about a different kid so I think that yes that deep love is there and it we just have to kind of make it a little safer for those kids to access it is there any kind of General statements that one can still make accurately about differences in the expression or perhaps even the experience of deeply feeling kids in boys versus girls great question um I actually haven't noticed a ton there might be I'd love to look more into that but in terms of I want to be accurate I haven't noticed that yet I think one of the things you know you have one of these kids is if you know the moments when you're a parent where your kid like needs you like there and in those moments your kids push you away they push you away when they need you the most that's like I think a really common quality for the for those kids and how how um common is this um I sound like such a like a a biologist this deeply feeling kid phenotype I I don't I don't I don't want to you know I don't want to um lessen the the importance of of of what you're saying by saying it that way because actually what I think you're saying is incredibly important resonates with me on a lot of different levels in fact so um but as far as I know it's not a DSM diagnosis and thank goodness it's not because that would pathologize it right um so but you know of the you know in in a classroom full let's make it a big classroom a 100 Kids yeah um how many of those kids Pro and I'm guessing it's a Continuum but would fall into this category of of deeply feeling I think you're right it's a Continuum and connecting topics I know you've spoken about I've been doing a lot of looking into this overlap with deeply feeling kids and neurode Divergence and ADHD and what I think interesting about that is we we have these workshops these deeply feeling kid workshops and a lot of them we do live and there's this whole chat right and I'll say these things people like that you know and they're definitely ideas they haven't heard but what I think is more healing is thousands of people in the chat and and saying I I thought when I say the hissing thing the chat is like a waterfall I thought I was the only one I thought so like there are so many of these kids why I think there's more and more something I need to look more into but I I think it does really if you think about these kids as more porous and you think about how insanely stimulating the world is that we bring up kids what comes into them it would make sense that I think this is like a growing type I'm guessing it's similar with ADHD too I are so many more kids diagnosed than in the past the world we bring up kids in the sensory overload if you're kind of that much more porous that's going to overload your system and you know it see and I think that I think that's also why more and more kids are so what's the percentage I don't I don't know like uh maybe 20 but that don't that's fairly high percentage I do I think it's a fairly high percentage but that feels right it just sort of feels right based on my observation of adults also yeah um feels right might also explain a lot of the um apparent conflicts and and um misunderstandings in adult relationships that's ex and we I mean so many people like they'll say to me I was oh my goodness like that was like that was like years of therapy for me watching that I thought I would took that from my kid like this was me and I finally talking about I believe you that's what I mean deeply feeling kids are desperate to be believed and they're desperate for our attempts to connect with them because their deep fear is their unlovability and so they do reject typical you know it's a Dan get out of my room fine you're so difficult and then see I really am as unlovable and bad as I worried I was right unless we kind of reverse that cycle I'd be willing to bet my life that most of the ultra successful performing artists that we observe um you I'm not going to name names but just think of ultra successful that the people whose words music poetry writing acting uh presence evokes immense uh emotion in other people so much that people will pay money to see these people Express their emotions and what's inside them fall into this deeply feeling category 100% I mean it just can't be any other way right yeah the the muted uh perform former unless that's the the shtick so to speak is um is just not compelling yeah yeah and um a lot of what we're talking today is about um the kind of um tuning fork nature of emotions uh it's a wow what what a tricky balance speaking of that I'd like to just return to something I raised earlier and then I made the mistake it was my fault of shutting the hatch on it I'd like to reopen that hatch which is um when there's two parents maybe they're under the same roof maybe they're not uh or let's just say two caretakers um so kids are pretty darn good at figuring out who to go to For What and how to balance out negative experiences by seeking out the positive reinforcement of the other sometimes even pitting parents and caretakers against one another I mean makes children sound diabolical but adults do it too it's called gossip what can co-parents co- caretakers um do to try and align strategies or if necessary to offset um some like bad stuff that the other parent might be doing and in today's landscape where it's about 50% of of marriages and in divorce at least in the US you also have the the situation where then their um new significant others come in and now you've extended the landscape to you know sometimes five or six different parents you know yeah my familyes my biological family starting to look like the UN we've got so many countries and religions and like this thing it's kind of nice on the one hand but um lots of Divergence of opinion and emotional stance and background so how in the world do we do we wrap our efforts around this yeah so I one of the most common questions I get from a parent at good inside is like can you convince my partner why the way they do things is wrong and you know do things more like good inside and so essentially I always say like yeah I'm not for a million Reasons I'm not like too interested in taking that phone call um you know but yeah I don't get involved in couple disputes either um you know but but again assuming and you've said this a couple times which I love like I'm assuming the way your kind of partner or you know the co-parent does things is not like really like damaging your child obviously that's like really time for an intervention no hitting no emotional abuse exactly but you know even like I'm not a believer of saying for a timeout right like I don't believe in timeouts and punishments I I don't think they feel good to kids or parents and I also don't think they're effective no so time out's not effective I don't think so okay and I and we probably should have closed the hatch on I have to imagine that the going uh word in the profession of psychology and raising kids properly is you never spank them you never hit them yeah no okay all right for the record so maybe we'll get back there but just to go on the record and I think you can sense from my style not punishing or timeouts like doesn't mean you're permissive at all there's zero % permissive or even softness I think you know and not well there softness there's 0% permissive in those moments but we can get back there but let's say your partner does do that or the co-parent right like I would be the first to say to someone like do I think that that's like messing up your kid I I don't I really don't especially if for example in that situation let's say um I'm divorced and my now ex you know I just know that they do timeouts or this and I've tried to talk to them but you know whatever they're not getting on board with the style and to me what happens is like you have a kid they come back to you and they're like you know um papa gave me a timeout and we don't do that in my house and my first thing is I call my ex that's usually what I do or the school did this and I call the school I called the ex and I'm like why did you do that we don't do that what I think is really important and I actually find it very like relieving to as a parent be like what's actually most important is helping my kid understand their experience like we Center the other person and what they're doing wrong wrong instead of centering our kid we might need to call a parent the other parent and say like hey it would be really great to get on the same page could we could we do this course together that would just be great you don't have to agree with anything I I think that would be great but in that moment what my kid needs actually is more like wait that's kind of hard confusing so like in our house when you do something like you scream I hate you you know I intervene in one way and when you go to your dad's house he intervenes in a very different way it's a lot of like that's a lot of switching to make sense of you know or maybe my kid says um mom never apologizes to me after she yells and I would call you know or maybe it's my own wife and I'm like hey you know the importance of repair haven't you listened to all this literature you know I would like to have some influence on that but what I feel like my kid needs in the moment it's more like tell me what happened oh oh she yelled at you and yeah look something I know like I know Mom was I know she had a really stressful day at work and look this isn't your responsibility but you can just know this mom has a really hard time apologizing to her has a really hard time apologizing and actually when people have a hard time apologizing they seem cold and like they don't care they actually usually just feel so ashamed of what they did and the reason I'm telling you that is not because you have to take care of her but just so you know this so wasn't you and anytime something happens with mom that doesn't feel good and you feel like you can't resolve it like you can talk to me and I'm going to get out of roleplay for a sec but I think you can see like I'm not throwing my wife under the bus like at all um but I'm centering what my kid needs what my kid needs going back is they need to process that experience with an adult they feel safe with rather than being aloneness and I I often picture like this kid on the couch who tells me a problem at their dad's house or at school and I like go off to make a call and I picture them alone being like Oh like now I'm alone like I where's like I didn't really want you to go do that I just wanted you to like listen to me you know um there might then be a step two you know to kind of get on the same page or when parents say get on the same page I think the problem is that we're not like looking at the same page forget getting on the same page we're not even speaking the same language like people say to me my partner won't even watch a video with me that I just want to even even if they disagree that is the problem and frankly that's not a parenting problem that's also what I'll say to someone if you say to your partner look I've been a member of inside and it's been really helpful and it resonates and you don't have to agree with it but like I would love to watch this 4minute video if you're partner says no that has nothing to do with parenting that is a core relationship problem that they just don't care to do something that you say is important to you that's a that's a marriage problem that's all right so and I think it's really important and we talk about this a lot like if that was someone I'd coach them to say hey and you don't have to agree but if you don't commit to watching a 4-minute video with me and just talking about it a little bit and I promise I'll try not to be judgy or provy I'll just listen I don't really think we're talking about parenting I think you're telling me you don't really respect me enough to do the things I'm asking you to do and that'll that'll stick with me like that's the way I'd handle it yeah this is very helpful I'm curious about these ADHD diagnoses SL kids cuz there's a lot of uh you know um loose hand diagnosis this day these days um years ago I was a camp counselor took kids backpacking and I I learned an important concept of um when working with Adolescent and teenage boys which is be a channel not a dam you know when they're super energetic like they're not sitting still where it's not nap time there's just no way um so this notion of getting it out like allowing some place for physical or emotional catharsis that's safe obviously ly um and that kids have a lot of energy I mean damn it the adult population seems to be trying to regress themselves to have that energy so how can we blame them for having so much energy and uh of course there are children who have and adults with clinically diagnosed ADHD that really struggle but you know for the kid that's more energetic U maybe even has a hard time sitting still to the point of discomfort and when the rest of the world that we can't control is telling them like hey like your kid is like needs to be regulated on the subway on the bus in the classroom um you know what are some things that we can do in terms of communication with those kids and probably some of those kids are listening as well um and to just be a channel not a dam to allow their best expression to come forward yeah I mean I love this idea in general like we it's much more effective to tell anyone what they can do rather than telling them what they can't do right across the board with kids because there's usually a can that is possible and then like you can work with the urge instead of I don't even know trying to suppress it or have it not act itself out it's it's like our urges and feelings our forces like they're going to they're going to come out and so yes I think this idea of like me and my kid are on the same team here I think that's so important to start with any kid definitely you know if you have a kid with some intentional you know struggles like we're on the same team you can so easily get into me against you and then you look to shut down anything everything about them but yeah we're on the same team so let's say like it's hard to do homework right now I see you okay like let's let's take an amount of time and it seems like you have a lot of energy like let's do some heavy work or let's run outside and maybe homework always has to start after a period like that maybe they need a break but this idea of yes I'm working with my kid as opposed to against my kid is always going to be more successful do you think the some of the new emerging tools some of which you know I've talked a lot about but many many people have talked a lot about um things like meditation kids doing some long exhale breathing um you know in addition to the you know the way I grew up it was like PE time or recess time you like run around like crazy and um do you think that these tools are helping kids get some self-regulation or is whatever self-regulation they're gaining offset by the fact that um you know there's just so much more input you know we hear so much about the challenges of social media for adults but certainly for kids um you know bullying obviously being one of the more Salient ones but also just the fact that when they go home at night and they're in bed they're potentially still in interactions with their friends we used to have a a phone landline that we'd sometimes call one another on but I wasn't really much of a phone kid uh with my friends so when you're home you were home you were separated from all of that I mean how bad is it and um what are some things that parents and kids might consider yeah to mean meditation things like that like always like icing on the cake like that's always helpful and certainly like teaching kids real tools like those are like literally something I can do I've learned this meditation I have a mantra something like that like huge fan right you have to be able to like touch it in some way but to me I think what what's coming up is you bring up this larger point and it actually goes back to where we started it's like the cost to Children of parents not being able to set boundaries has never been higher and and at the same time it's never been harder for parents to set boundaries right and I think this stuff starts way before social media like to me when I think about the earliest years of a kid's life like you get so much bang for your buck in life from helping kids just learn to tolerate frustration and so much of kids early life right now in the world we live in is all about the immediate escape from frustration and not only escape from frustration but from frustration to gratification in like an instant it's like so fast like how did that just happen like it didn't used to be like that there wasn't even an option like me and you like I don't know you wanted a movie like I don't know maybe your parent could drive you to Blockbuster if you had an account and then like maybe I don't I remember going be like are they going to have it are they going to have it and then you see the thing and there's nothing behind it and you're like they don't have it that whole thing Blockbuster by the way was a video store just kid I'm just totally kidding I'm totally kidding but some people out there like I sometimes do this to myself you know yeah absolutely I used to love going to pick out movies at the at the V VHS store but if you think about that as one tiny thing it's obviously tiny and you think about like I remember that in my childhood and you think about that tiny moment compared to some parallel in a kid the there's no frustration the want and the gratification there's zero space there is zero space and and also I have to say our generation of parents and me too 100% me too our tolerance for frustration has gone way down because of the gratification world we live in which means our tolerance of our kids Tantrums is at a alltime low because we're like hey my life is like pretty easy in a lot of ways this is like a massive inconvenience so kids have more gratification than ever we have lower tolerances for frustration everyone does which means the way we interact with kids over and over and over plus just the natural things they're surr they're exposed to or not like Netflix versus Blockbuster just means like their circuitry around expectations and what feels good it like to me that's what really it scares me it does and like figuring out how to tolerate or even insert like literally insert frustration into your kids's life as early as possible to me is like is is is of critical importance I could not agree more and and I say that with the understanding that I have also shortened the latency in my reward prediction errors which is nerd speak for uh when I want to watch a movie I go into Netflix and they're like it's near infinite and I can get right then um if the internet's a little slow then I start barking about how slow internet is worse than no internet and you know you start observing yourself and you just go oh my goodness like what's going on yeah I mean there the ability to tolerate different weight times between anticipation and reward is so critical and that's what getting a degree is about that's what doing anything challenging is about um I I've gone on record saying that um too much dopamine without effort exerted in order to get that dopamine um is very detrimental well well that to me in all the screen time kind of discussion there's so much screen time and social media and like all the things that screen time do to for kids and again like my kids watch TV and they're young they have iPads like I'm so not a purist I'm a pragmatist and whoever's listening to this no one messed up their kids forever okay so we can just like we were talking about before use this information to make slightly different decisions on the margin that's the best it gets but I think about this when our kids are especially young and they're building this circuitry around like what does it mean to get success like what what are my expectations there how much effort do I have to put in and I think about like a young kid you know playing some mindless just dopamine giving gain the circuit they learn is like mindlessness zero effort dopamine and then I think and I find this really interesting like how many people say like their kid is six now they're having a really hard time learning how to read and they're all these learning assessments and the learning assessments are coming back like no dyslexia right and I know some of you families I say this with love is I say I literally think this is the first time in this kid's life that they kind of have to put like concerted effort without in the moment success and so yeah that like that looks like a lot of things it can it can even present like ADHD right because you know it can present like that it might be but it might also just be that these dopamine circuits have developed in a way that's so that's not conducive with something like learning how to read right and so when parents ask me now like I know reading and academic skills like what can I do when my kids are younger I got them flash cards no flashcards like I mean you can get flashcards that's fine it's not like detrimental but to me it's like well what is my kids's relationship with frustration because I think about this thing called like the learning space right again I'm visual like there's not knowing how to do something and then they're successfully doing something and the space in between is like the learning space that's what learning is and learning the learning space inherently is frustrating that's like the right feeling to be feeling and when kids have learned to collapse those two things then like they don't have a lot of space to learn versus I don't know even like I'm thinking about my kid who wants to like draw a rainbow or sun when they're young and they're like that doesn't look like Gan it would be easy for me to be like let me just do that for you and by the way yes I give myself permission to do that sometimes like sometimes like I can't deal with this I've got other things to do but sometimes I think like long and that long-term greedy like this is going to be the same circuit for learning how to read it is and for learning how to do that project and what if my only goal forget them drawing a son and I've got to tolerate The Whining my only goal was just to lengthen the amount of time they let themselves be in that learning space that's it because I think we know as adults it's not about getting to success that comes when it comes the longer amount of time you let yourself be in that learning space the more successful you can be with hard things because like it just is right you just got to Traverse through and so to me that's like honestly one of the things I'm most passionate about teaching parents is like literally like what do you do during that time then how do I change what my goal is if my goal is to stop my kids tantrum I'm going to collapse it but if my goal is just to lengthen that I might do something very different oh drawing a cir that's not you're right you didn't want to draw that oh drawing a circle is so hard and my kids can you do it for me can you do it like of course sometimes I will but I might say like I'm not going to do it sweetie I'm not you know why because I know you can do this a little more I have faith in you and I think this is so powerful to say to kids this is so frustrating and that's the exact way you should be feeling we don't want our kids to be F you should that's the right feeling I'll even draw that learning space visual this is where you're in the this is where you are you're doing an amazing job and it is actually interesting when kids are young like they actually do adopt that like someone said to me like I've been doing this stuff for a while and my kid literally says to me I like to do hard things mom like they they believe it like that's an amazing self-belief to develop it awesome so yes I think this stuff especially compared to how easy it is to get that gratification it's just it's like more important than ever to have an offset yeah I'm uh doing my best to get the word out into the world that the only reason the brain changes at all is if um there is these neuromodulators like epinephrine adrenaline in the body and brain because that's what signals that the nervous system needs to change if something can be accomplished there's no reason for the nervous system to change by definition there's also I don't want to been off into a a a neuroscience of of resilience and willpower lesson here but there's some amazing literature that um shows that there's this area of the brain the interor mid singulate cortex which is activated when people do things they don't want to do um and it generalizes to other things but this is not the I love to work out so I'm going to work out this is the I hate to work out and I do it anyway and it translates to success in academic Endeavors success in all sorts of environments and so I think um the beauty of it is that this brain structure is highly plastic and can be built up through one thing and that translates to others so doing hard things experiencing uh what I call lyic friction just as as a gateway to learning just understanding that it it always feels hard that that's what learning is in fact I can remember in graduate school even as a young adult my mid-20s I was struggling with an analysis um and my graduate adviser she was wonderful this way and I said she clearly knew how to do it and I said um can you explain how to do this and she goes no I go what I was like just get done and she's like no it's called learning and she just walked out she was also a great parent um to her children um and I also tried to get adopted by her and that failed so you know third time the CH exactly my poor parents like uh they they did their best and uh I'm grateful to them for many things but I think that um including the the encouragement to do hard things do things that suck um that are beneficial for us so it's it's it's a knife edge right now I'm reflecting it's like do things that suck I believe you it sucks and then what what did my mom used to say a lot you know hate me now love me later you know I loved her then and and I love her now but yeah there were moments where I was like I hate that you're making me do this um I don't know about that hate me now love me later old school um but but I think what she was trying to say is I have your best interest in mind yeah definitely that's right definitely yeah no definitely um can I say one thing just cuz it's loud in my head just like one of the things in this like I think it's easy and I'm hearing myself like we hear this and I think it's easy to listen be like oh man I never thought about it that way or I didn't know that or again we just spiral as a parents so fast like I messed up my kid forever like nobody messed up their kid forever it doesn't matter how that is just not true and this is where I think we can spiral into like yeah what's wrong with me and like I kind of ask parents in this situation to like come with me to a different location which is kind of like anger and I have started to feel angry and I think angry anger like tells us what we need so I'm like well what is that anger telling me like it is it is messed up the system is stacked against us that when you become a parent it is literally the hardest most confusing most triggering most important job we have and we are given zero resources right like nobody I know would tell a surgeon who never went to med school and was struggling at surgery that they were a bad surgeon they' be like wow like you probably like you probably deserve to go to med school and residency by the way like that's an important job you have and so I think it's easy to listen to all this and spiral into like oh no but I'd ask you to almost like feel a little like protective helpful anger next to it which is like wow like yes like this is an important job I have this is complicated and maybe there are resources out there that like I deserve and I think that like that's the perspective I would ask parents to listen from earlier you described the job of parenting as boundaries right imparting boundaries as well as empathy and validation I just want to remind people that your B like very basic but very practical uh job description for parenting is something that I think we can return to over and over again it also makes me wonder uh in thinking about the um generalizability of these con Concepts to other forms of relationship what about the relationship to self right it's something we don't often talk about yes um relationship to self we we want to have boundaries and we also want to be able to empathize and validate ourselves yeah and I think right like I don't know my friend didn't invite me I don't know I found out she had five friends for a dinner and I was like oh you know I'm so hurt I would I would say to I I believe myself like I'm allowed to feel that way I think our feelings love when we tell them they makes sense I just think there's something magical about that phrase it makes sense I'm upset I mean my friends were all there and I wasn't that that makes sense and and there's a boundary cuz when my feeling tells me well I'm about to plan a dinner party for 200 people and invite everyone I know but her I feel like there's important like you know what feeling like I'm not going to I'm not going to let you go that far and the image I always think about is like I'm the driver of my car and all the different feelings and urges like they're passengers and we can't get them out of the car you just can't they're in your body but you don't want to let them take over the driver's seat that's really what it is and as long as they're a passenger they actually won't cause you that many problems they'll be annoying and to me that's like hey I see you like I see you and I will often say hi to my feelings for that reason like high anxiety that woke me up at 4 in the morning you know like yes there's a lot of my mind Hi and then there's like a boundary like you're not like you're a part of me and not all of me so I think that phrase for regulating our own feelings you're a part of me and not all of me is the essence of validating and having a boundary what about our need I think healthy need to know whether or not the lesson stuck uh so I've observed this before a kid is catastrophizing about an upcoming event maybe a concert or a test or a homework thing or a social thing and like okay we're using all our best tools to try and help them and I believe you I hear you then and they go through the experience and they do pretty well maybe even great and then we say like did you notice you were so concerned before and you you did it yeah you really did it is there something that we can or should do to try and stamp down that that recognition because one thing that's so beautiful about childhood is the um short-term Horizon nature of childhood which kind of like trying I mean we talk about you know adults trying to take it one day at a time or even half a day at a time and kids are navigating on the basis of like first period class yeah second period class I mean um they're they're they're Horizon is often very close in and I do wonder if they're internalizing these these more Global lessons um on their own or whether or not we should uh try and help them internalize what they just did like do you get it you were super concerned you were like almost dissolving into a puddle of your own tears and I believe you that was the appropriate response then and now you did it like think about that is it good that we reinforce those those um those wins yeah I mean I think that I think our kids do internalize kind of the patterns right but but I hear you there are these moments it's almost like we want to like encapsulate it for them like hey that was a thing right I think kids pick up on whether our interactions were doing something for them or for us so if it's from a like hey that thing I taught you was really helpful right like it would just be like if my husband was like hey your presentation went well because I like told you to do that thing and I'd be like stop talking to me right but if he said to me hey like what was it that to that it's probably like that's helpful to talk out you know I'd be much more open so I love the phrase going back to like just real tools I'm noticing I think actually often we want to praise our kids or tell something just saying I'm noticing because again we want to be seen we don't want to feel controlled I'm noticing does that like hey I'm noticing you were so worried about this test we kind of talked about this way of like talking to your anxiety and and then I'm just noticing you like felt really good about how it went like even that I think cuz that's like the big thing now in our like crazy fast world we live in is just pausing to notice that's already like encapsulating or saying to your kid and and I think like a question is only a question when you don't know the answer right like sometimes we ask qu that they're just they have question marks but it's like a statement or criticism so if we say to our kid um that that thing I taught you was really helpful right do you think that's that what was helpful that's not really a question we already have an answer but if I say hey like I just thought it would be good for us to talk talk through for a second like what was it you think that like LED you to really feel good that day in the test then like if I really don't know what my kid could say I think they'll receive it and then they might say like oh is that thing we talked about like that's so great to know I'm even thinking about Spanish coming up and like I wonder do you think that would I think I wonder is also a great phrase for parents just wondering I wonder if that would be helpful there again they just like lower defensiveness because there's maybe there's like movement with wandering it doesn't feel controlling um so yeah I think I think there is like those are nice moment if it comes from a place of like connection not from control that makes sense um we had a guest on this podcast Lisa Feldman Barrett who's a world expert in emotions and um she explained that um in cultures where there's more nuanced language for different emotions um rather than the what I call the emogif of emotions um there's better emotion tolerance um so understanding that it's not just sad happy depressed uh thrilled but there's a lot of nuance it's very context dependent um can be very useful um do you think there's something to be gained for from letting kids um explore the range of emotions not just you know how do you feel good or bad I mean most adults need to learn that good or bad are valuations that's not actually an emotion like it's not actually an expression of how you feel but that's what we do for shorthand um you know do you think that let's just say in the United States um but elsewhere perhaps as well well that there's some value to like teaching kids to pay attention like like what is going on inside yeah like what is this feeling of what I call anxiety is it excitement and anxiety what like being able to better pinpoint what one is um coping with but also the positive aspects of emotion yes I mean I it's funny I am the clinical psychologist the question how do you feel I always find like very like a lot of pressure I don't know like I think that's I I tend not to ask my kid that but I T also never to have asked like patients that like so you know I think what we're getting at is we want and I think this relates to resilience like resilience is our ability in my mind to tolerate the widest range of emotions as possible because like as humans we're going to feel that whole range so the more of them you've learned to tolerate like the better off you'll be and so that's what I want for my kids I don't know if that has to explicitly come from naming although I think that point is definitely true the more things we can name the more things we can understand to me just showing up for your kid in a way that's like with believing maybe with boundaries um is probably the best way to help your kid tolerate the widest range of emotions because they learn that every emotion like can be held in connection with someone else right versus held in aloneness and is bad um so I guess that's the way I think through it maybe we could talk about adolescence and teenagers specifically um teenage years are wild I would say that the single most traumatic aging event and the most rapid rate of Aging that we ever experience is puberty I mean just fundamentally brain circuits that were for one thing or that were dormant change and come alive in ways that the world forever will look different to us feel different to us and our self-perception changes period it's something that biologists still understand at the level of hor hormes and hypothalamic circuitry but that um has really not been matched to a psychological understanding and vice versa so um like nothing is quite like the music you listen to when you're a teenager it like it brings you back the memories you form positive and negative stamp down boom now and forever the emotional salience can change but those are wild years what are some of the more critical needs of late adolescents and teens that you know are actionable um yeah you know and yeah I mean I'm just mean my teen years were were crazy but um even if they're less crazy they're always crazy yes yes so and one of the reasons I think at least in America that adolescence has seen a such a huge shift like my kid is out of control they're always out they're like always rejecting me I don't think is unrelated to the behavioral control approaches that are inherent in American parenting cuz like you referred to your kid becomes 14 and they kind of realize like wait I'm bigger than one of my parents like I literally don't care about their sticker charts anymore and we might have missed 14 years of building a relationship and so what that kid's adolescence is going to look like is markedly different than if for those past 14 years you weren't giving into everything no but you were leading in a sturdier more connected way so I really think this whole idea that American adolescence like reject everything I actually think not all of it a part of it is completely developmentally normal but a big part of it relates to this tradition of Behavioral control that kids cannot reject until they're at the age that they kind of could survive on their own which is adolescence so I think that's really important the things I would tell parents to really keep in mind that are critical number one is related to that like a teen's job is to separate and to start to form their own identity and I think there's a couple things about that parents need to know number one like I don't think we prepare parents enough for the true sense of loss they feel when their kids are adolescence because that's very real like you've just spent all these years and like you've driven them to every soccer and they kind of talk you in the back seat and maybe you have family movie nights and then all of a sudden they don't want any of that and it's just so important parents to know like I'm I'm going to feel sad I'm going to feel lost and if we don't know to expect it we often kind of Infuse that into a lot of anger toward our kid um and so I just think that's normal and we should talk about that more and parents of adolescent need to be talking about that with each other of course you miss that that's totally normal um number two related to that separation if you think about identity formation right like here's a kid and us and we're kind of close and they now we're at the stage we devel mentally their job at that stage just to figure out who they are they have to overcorrect like you have to kind of overcorrect in the amount of space you take because it's really the only way you can figure out like wait maybe I do want to take parts of that that part's okay and so I think that's like a powerful image to think about like they are moving far away that distance they take from you is not their final point they will move closer now going back to loss not as close as they used to be and that is different but that's not that's this is their way of trying to figure out who they are then the last thing I'd say that kind of relates that image it's like even as they move away I think parents massively underestimate how much they still need us they making efforts to connect and I always think like the difference in like an Explorer and a nomad is whether or not you have a home base and like if our teens feel like Nomads is not a good situation they're explorers they try a million different things but like they they really really do need us they they need to know that they have a home and um I'll never forget my private practice I I used to work with teens not that long ago just the teen sometimes the parents too and this teen came to me and this was extreme she had been um really in a in a in a bad place with her parents like intense intense conflict and um they got in this huge fight and she was really really upset and she was describing this to me she's like and then I was like get out of my room get out I hate you get out you know and I was just like sitting there listening and and then she like she I push him out I slam the door and was a couple minutes later open the door my heart's racing can you believe they weren't there can you believe they weren't there and to me it was just this like and again it's not about being a punching bag but I like under like her seeming anger and her like intense pain we're so close together in her own story that it's just over and over the same thing like they're going to reject you they're going to say get out of my room and yes it sucks but they want you to slip a note under their door after you've taken a couple minutes it says that was really tough or like wow that got out of control you're a good kid and I love you and I wanted to tell parents of teens you're going to do that there's going to be a pause and then you will will hear them rip up the note you will and like I swear to any parent that that still resonated and your kid is again trying to figure out how do I stay close with my parents and I'm figuring out my own who I am so like they rip up the note because like they almost like have to do it to like take in how much they're still desperate for those bids for connection sounds a lot like um the Dynamics of adult relationships although hopefully hopefully with a little bit less um dramatic uh accentuation um but you know even if it does I mean it's like these um these circuits that are laid down in childhood Early Childhood they persist right I mean I think if anything's become clear to me in understanding brain development and brain function it's that you know we don't discard circuitry for attachment and go oh you know that was for Mom and this one was for Dad and that one was for the dog and um and then the Romantic relationship is different we repurpose the circuits hence all the beautiful work on childhood attachment that's now being translated to adult attachment I mean I realize there's Nuance to it but you know I was um reflecting a bit on this again incredibly potent um phrase or mention of explorers versus Nomads of having a home base and thinking about uh these psychology experiments where children are observed in the presence of their caretakers sometimes the strange situation t where people are SE kids are separated from their moms and mom um and child typically mom nowaday it's also been done with other caretakers and dads reunite but one doesn't even have to know about those experiments all you have to do is go to a park or be out in public and see a little toddler venturing away from parent and then what do they do every once in a while they look back they're just trying to check to make sure they're there even the kids that are like taking off on the tricycle like crazy yes will eventually stop and look back it's like this fundamental circuit we're looking back you know and how far they feel they can go is in direct relationship to presumably the number of times that they recharged that they re that they recharge and were able to see that uh that verification that the parent was still there I think this notion of explorers versus Nomads and um being an Explorer obviously being a good thing a healthy thing um within reason um and Nomads just feeling a drift untethered yes you know one of the one of the scariest words at least to me in the um in the English language um so the note under the door yeah um it included the words I love you I I don't want to get too uh detailed here but those words sometimes are never spoken in a home sadly um sometimes are spoken so often and under so many circumstances that one wonders like do they lose their potency yeah um but I noticed that in that note there it finished I love you it's sort of like stating at the end of the day no matter what you say probably even what you do I mean i' I've gone I've been in the presence of parents of kids that were criminals that did horrible things they still love their kids so reminding kids that under any and all circumstances yeah and again and I think what's so critical cuz our brain collapses is that doesn't mean you think their behavior is okay and I get the fear like I would never want to send my kid the message that it's okay to quote do certain things right like that it's okay to just scream at your parents of course it's not okay it's just I think we miss like that happened like that happened already like if I dropped my phone and it broke and I was trying to understand why it broke trying to understand that doesn't mean it's okay that I dropped it like it just it doesn't it just dropped like it happened now what you know and yeah our kids need to know they need to know that they're loved and that again there's kind of like in that message I think like I still see you're a good kid under that moment and I actually think it's a powerful strategy for every parent to kind of conjure up a a good kid image like what is it was that that last time we were playing this game and it was just so fun or is it a memory of my kid when they were three and like I don't know they did this really cute thing and it kind of like really crystallizes that and like even under you know this bad behavior that kid like that kid's still there and the kids the kids who behave the worst are in the deepest pain I mean the adults too and that's not to say it's okay but again we're talking about relationships we want to be in like if you're in a relationship with your teen it's not one you're like this is toxic like this is my kid I'm going to be in a relationship with them so you know remembering that they're in pain teens are in a lot of pain they're exploring a new world frankly right now like teens have world we don't understand it that's so helpful for parents to approach your teen just as a tangible tool and say you know there's so many things in your world that I don't understand and frankly probably I might like criticize or judge like can you take out your phone this you know whatever it is this app you're on this video game like can we just even time box this 5 minutes like I just want to end this conversation saying I understand it better like I promise you that's probably going to do more for your relationship with your kid than anything else because yes they do and they might reject you and if you do again don't take the bait but ask again next week like again they they do they need us to to return yeah one thing's for sure none of us except those that are teens know what it's like to be a teenager in 2024 just like they didn't know what it was like to be a teenager for me in the late 80s early 90s how could they right right so um what what are your thoughts on like family meetings like once a week we sit down we check in you know I hear that people do this may participated in these before um do you feel like those can be use or is it or is it more um window dressing I mean I guess it depends what's happening in there I mean the idea of like hey there's a lot going on in our life and we have a ritual of coming together and talking things through working through problems like if that's what it is that's a beautiful thing like I hear that my first thought is I should do that you know um but you're right like life gets messy so but if it's done in a way where it feels we end and everyone feels a little bit more understood and a little bit more purpose and you know making things move forward in a positive direction that's amazing I think family meetings it's funny the way I think about them often which is just different is it's actually a great strategy especially when your kids are older and um there's like somewhat of an ongoing conflict so maybe there's like an ongoing conflict about how much video game time or you know how much you know they how late they can stay out and to say to a kid and again this just comes from again so important for teens we have to approach our kid like we're on the same team I always say me and my kid against a problem not me against my kid where they are the problem like and so to say hey you've been late you know or we have to figure out your curfew and like look you're a smart kid you're a good kid my number one job is to keep you safe but you're old now and if I just tell you a time it's same thing that happened last year we're getting fights all year why don't we sit down and we we'll do what I do in my office there's two people they each have ideas I'm going to bring a pad of paper and that's actually super important and I'm going to write down all of your ideas and my ideas and then we're just going to kind of go through and cross out the ones that you know feel completely unreasonable and I have a feeling when when we do that we're going to come to a good place so again you can see there's that like hope I'm giving like I hold the positive outcome same team I'm giving my kid Credit in advance this actually like really Su It's usually the opposite of what teens feel which is just my parents don't even listen to me or care and think they have all the answers I've heard this notion of you know um couple parents come first and kids come second and some people are probably like what you know well clearly never parented ah well no actually um it's an interesting idea perhaps not correct or incorrect but maybe Dynamic across time where the real question is if kids know that they are running the family in terms of what they do or their inability to not be attended to Etc um is driving the whole relationship that the parents are in yeah versus you know recognizing and here I'm I'm matching two parent home but we could talk about divorced or people with significant others or single parent homes um been in all of those um you got of Wonder like are kids really paying attention to how much they are being prioritized to the point where if they observe their parents tending to their own needs that they feel deprivation or is it make them feel safer like hey Mom Andor dad are taking care of themselves and can show up better yes I think that is critically important and it kind of goes again to boundaries like of a parent like my relationship with my kid is so important and I'm not going to let that take over me like that is not all of me I am not only a caregiver to my to my kid like I would stand by that all day long like is that an important part of me and it's still a part of me and I think this is really important to own as a parent because again we tend to get a like we get apologist for it or we look for our kids permission we'll say look I need to go out with Dad without you okay like we have a relationship too like and we again there's that job confusion and my kid feels that and again it's that kind of giving them too much power I've said this to my kids a lot so say why do you go out with Dad without me I say it's a great question you know first of all dad and I were married before we had kids our relationship is really important to us and we love being with you and being with you is different than just being the two of us and that really really matters to us and so you don't have to be happy about it you can you and let's say I have a babysitter I know safe with you can cry when I leave and the babysitter will hold you and we're going to go out to dinner and we're going to come back and you know we'll see you in the morning yeah I think that is so important I actually think this is another topic like this topic of like rage and Parenthood is like a big topic like the way why like why do I get to these moments of Rage so often that my screaming it's not just screaming at my kids it's really rageful and I think the parents often who are the most vulnerable to that are the ones where where they're not make they're not meeting like any of their non-caregiving needs which makes sense that a part of them is like screaming out like what about me I used to go to dance class I used to see friends I used to go out with my partner and talk about things other than you know our kids and so again if I think a kids need a sturdy leader right more than anything else and sturdiness is not allowing yourself to be taken over by any one thing including your relationship with your kid is it truly better for their to be two sturdy leaders and one sturdy leader I realize this is a controversial question yeah I mean I know and I know there's research to back this up that like having one kind of sturdy leader in your life is massively protective I really believe that and so when parents say my partner isn't I'm like we we have research this is true is two better than one I don't know the research like probably I don't know you know but what I think is important in there too is what's not great for kids is having like all the caregivers be some like perfectly attuned caregiver right like that actually does not set up your kid for life at all right because I don't know anyone who thinks the partner I'm going to be with one day is going to be perfectly attuned to all my needs let me go find that person so you know you have one sturdy leader you have two but like being sturdy part of that is you're going to you're going to rupture you're going to rupture you're going to messed up you're going to hopefully repair you know after um but sturdiness I just want to make clear is so not the same as like Perfection Perfection is creepy it's not a thing no one needs that I love that um it's so first time I've laughed out loud on this podcast about a statement like that um yeah the notion of perfection is is kind of creepy um but sturdiness is anything but creepy that's there's it's just such a beautiful word for all the right reasons um what about behavioral examples in parents so for instance if children observe parents um being affectionate to one another in appropriate ways right you know um you know attending to one another in in boundar but empathically attuned ways um do you think that projects forward into their notion of of what adult relationships are like and should be like conversely if parents are yelling at one another um do you think that projects forward into it's okay to yell in adult relationships yeah I mean I yeah I think kids are they're expert noticers they notice everything right as part of how they've learned to survive as such helpless you know humans so they definitely notice they definitely act like sponges um so yes if you're you know kind of privileged enough in that way to grow up in a home or you have parents who in general are fairly affectionate they take responsibility for their stuff they communicate in a healthy way I think that is like a true privilege you go into adulthood with yes the Other Extreme right you grow up with parents who you know they yell or they can even yell in scary voices again what I think is really important is the witnessing of that isn't going to be as impactful to a kid as the witnessing of it and nobody naming it and talking to them about it so this is why so often like kids will be in difficult stages intense Tantrums major issues at school and someone's like what do I do like what do I do with this well like I give you all the strategies in the world but if that is just your kids way of kind of manifesting all of their struggles with this like huge marital conflict that's happening it's not going to work so it's all part of the same system and so saying to your kid after you fight with your partner hey I think you heard Daddy and I screaming and I'm sure that felt scary because it does feel scary because they know you're their base so if their base is of a house is like you know Feels Like An Earthquake it feels scary like and you know another line I like it's like you were right to notice that we were using loud voices again I think that's massively confidence you know building um maybe what was that like for you or if you have a little kid just that's enough you know and they might look at you and say like can I have my snack now but it's still really sunk in so if there is a lot of conflict again I think it's really important we we talk about that with our kids don't leave them alone what about teens that are really Wayward um and this could be behavioral Outburst there's also the whole underside of this thing where it's also about withdrawal like the kids are withdrawn I mean we were talking about outburst and yelling there's also the example in parents or the instances in kids that they're just like really withdrawn yes that they're just like disengaged depressed depressed um maybe even dissociative who knows um but not good Y and this can show up on one end as violence on the other end is isolation it can show up as eating disorders it can show up as all sorts of things um you know intervention before age 18 is quote unquote easier in the sense that one has legal control but often times it's hard for parents to know like how bad is this yeah and you know I did an entire episode about cannabis and I spoke to some of the medical benefits of cannabis for adults who are non- addicts but I also talked a lot about some of the risks but let's take an example that I think is pretty common like kids 15 16 start smoking some THC with their friends and you go okay well everyone does that quote unquote not as bad as alcohol which I think is a lame argument this is lame doesn't make any sense again you're getting hit by a you know car isn't bad getting hit by a train but okay um but the point is you know most all parents like okay you know clearly they're self-medicating you know can't they think they can't stop them but you can stop them you know at what point do you then take you know you put them into a residential treatment program if you could even afford that I mean it's really tough for people to know how much to intervene in what is clearly not good behavior and it sometimes can be bad behavior and yet the kids are using it to self-medicate and there's a peer system that sometimes reinforces that yes I mean this is a huge landscape yeah maybe we have you back to talk just about this but but um maybe we can um prage that discussion but by like what do you tell people in your in your practice like get in there now pull the emergency cord and get this handled or do you say listen you just got to work with the you know work with this Sy tough problem I'm throwing at you here but I think the first thing is like how do I as a parent like kind of even assess is like this like is this normal is it not normal is it a problem is it not so I think there's a couple like things we could think about there number one just seeing like impact on overall functioning is always like a one barometer right so okay can my child perform the kind of tasks of their developmental stage okay so this is not the only thing but like are they still going to school wow I noticed since they smoking they're smoking a lot weeds their grades went from B's to D's like okay they don't care about school anymore they used to actually go out with friends now unless they're with this one crew where they smoke in the park like they're not even seeing these kids they used to be friends with they don't want to go to family functions anymore they used to play soccer like if I'm answering this i' be like wow I'm not really talking just about a marijuana problem I'm talking about my kid not engaging in kind of like the developmental tasks that I would say is just like it's time to seek additional support right another sign is just kind of how how limited their world has become be because of this right so again is this kind of taken over everything they do my kid is depressed let's say or you know and all of a sudden their world has gotten really really small and it's not just that that's the way they've always lived like there's a big there's a big change the amount of conflict in the home again like is there conflict when you have teens of course there is but like wow like is it really hard to talk to my teen for more than four minutes walking on eggshells to me is also a sign that we need additional help am I scared to intervene in a way that would actually be in line with my values that's not a good sign right then the other thing I just want to make sure everyone knows is to me like seeking additional help is a sign of every single thing that's right with a family and I think we think it's a sign of something that's wrong and it's like also a sign of what's right to your in terms of messaging that to your kid again I think about a kid who I used to saw see my practice she was probably 16 when she came to me she was cutting serious a lot right and I remember saying just intake hey how long have you been doing this she just two years oh like did you see another therapist before you saw me she's like no she was like very like kind of you know kind of quippy and quick and I was just like why and she's like well I told my parents that if they took me to a therapist I would go and I would just waste all their money I'd be quiet and then when they left me there I would just leave and who's going to stop a 14-year-old from walking away and they might as well save their money because they can't make me okay and again I just kind of sense to stay quiet and she seriously one of the next things she said is can you believe they let me make that decision literally said that wow validates everything you said up until now and it is this is why this is where like I feel like I get my best ideas like that's right like a 14-year-old can convince her parent that she won't go to therapy when she's cutting like that that is not okay and again then we go to okay so I'm going to say to my kid you are going I'm like no there's so much between that we're in these binary States your kid's feelings about therapy cannot dictate your boundary right but we can't just then come down harshly and so I coach parents in this all the time what do you say to a kid I love you hear me like I love you we're in a tough stage I see this problem and I do think even when our kids get older we can say this my number one job is to keep you safe it is not to keep you happy with me and I actually love you so much that I'm willing to do things that make you unhappy with meh that is actually how much I care about you and so I am going to be driving you and if you want to like curse at me the whole time I will sit in that waiting room and you know what I'm going to do the next week I'm going to tell you I love you I'm going to do the same thing and I think adults hearing that on some level there's some internal truth like I probably needed that like that feels oddly good because there's like you know I'm not messing around but there's this way where as parents we've said like the way to show my kid I'm not messing around is to be mean to them like there was nothing mean about what I said I think it was more loving than saying to a kid okay let me know when you want to go that is not loving and so I think like our teens sometimes in those moments they need us to do our job and like be the pilot like they it is the small amount of time where they're still a passenger when they're 18 they are the pilot and so we have this window there's nothing I want to probe more into that I think you you captured it beautifully and uh it gets back to this issue of safety like in letting them make their own decision when they're clearly in trouble like if anything could make a kid feel unsafe a teen or or younger or adult it's that yes yes it's like laying the passenger on the plane be like hey instead of uh rerouting how about you just come up here and fly that's that's exactly that's literally what it is and they're like I can't believe you believed my little protest now I'm in the like this they don't they don't want that that's why their words teens's words it's not that we don't believe them like as you see I'm big on believing their words often are a representation of their fears all of us in our worst moments get out like I feel like sometimes like that's their fear or like they're kind of talking to their emotion they're so like they're not really talking to you in that moment they're so disregulated and like just learning to like not take it so literally and be like what am I really believing my kid is in pain they're cutting my kid isn't paying their smoking weed 30 times a day and don't go to class like I'm the like I know that they that they need help and again any parent who can say that like to me is like the strongest parent and that is such a sign of Health I don't think I'd still uh be alive today if it wasn't for um non-parent mentors and just examples in the world these aren't always people that were like hey I'm going to take you under my wing and be your Mentor actually that was rarely the case but it people in my real life or in my um you know reading or you know there wasn't YouTube back then but um sometimes now you know people I've I'm a huge fan for instance of that these a yian psychologist James Hollis who has these beautiful lectures on um making a life um and I'm learning so much like I consider him a mentor sorry James you didn't have a choice you're you're a mentor but these people that we can internalize certain healthy aspects that our parents just just apparently can't seem to arrange for themselves yeah and that we wish they had but I think that we um as children of all ages um like we want perfect parents we don't get them um but it seems appropriate to me I love your thoughts it seems appropriate to me to have you know kind of a a foraging for examples of where we can get certain things that we can internalize for ourselves so that we can benefit that maybe our parents just aren't interested in capable of or even alive to provide us anymore yeah yeah I mean that like being everything to someone like I don't want my kids to ever say that about me my mom was everything she fulfilled my every need again I I do find that creepy whenever I don't know and like and just setting them up for so much relationship disappointment um my mom gave some things and you know we now that I also work a lot it's funny with my kids like there is this mom like when kids have a sleep over at her house I mean it is the best sleepover experience like I see pictures I'm like wow that was so thoughtful that was amazing she's like she puts together she's creative like and me and my kids joke like they're like yeah Mom you you're like bottom of the list and that stuff and I am I am and like I know I'm toward the top of the list and other things I don't I don't want to be toward first of all I don't want to hold myself to that standard that's like a great way to implode so yeah being able to say to my kid oh you guys want to have a sleepover you'd rather go to her house cuz that's okay like that's not an indictment me and so maybe this is some quote Mentor like figure for someone who can like put these details and make people feel really taken care of in that way that's great and I think yes giving your kid permission and encouragement again I think is such a gift to them later on like yeah our relationship with our kids becomes not only the foundation their expectations for their relationship with other adults me I also think is literally what they're attracted to I think when they're attracted to someone later on it's just the activation of that like earliest attachment and so if they can get activated around someone who seems to be pretty attuned and respectful and validating and boundar because they also have other things in their life and not everything like that's a privilege to say that's what I'm expecting so I think those other relationships and as a parent to hear your kid say my coach taught me this thing and sometimes they they say it in a caddy way so much better than what you said to do at lacrosse just to like take a deep breath and again this is where you can say like like I'm still a good parent even outside this moment like that's I'm so glad you're talking to me about this I believe you tell me more about this like such a beautiful example for your kid so being able to uh validate and embrace the fact that there are other sources of healthy upbringing um is you know not just perhaps is is clearly a good thing do I have that right I think that's right and I think if that's hard for a parent what I'd say is like it's a question without an exact answer but like where where did I learn that I'm supposed to be everything to someone like and is that and I think a lot of women we learn that in our families of origin to be good girls which really just means I have no wants and needs of my own and I just kind of gaze out and see how I can do things for you and I can be everything for you and then we have kids we don't realize we put that on to them but like you said those patterns travel with us and I find it like very relieving to be like maybe what if I don't W just gave me like a good percentage of energy back like I can I can do like so many other things now you know it's very it's like empowering I love it something that it's an unpleasant topic just by as soon as people hear the word but it's something that I think comes up on the child side the teen side and the parenting side and in adult relationships of all kind which is the dreaded entitlement oh dirty word parenting entitlement um maybe we could put some definition on entitlement and talk about um when it's bad is it always bad uh when it's neutral and when it's um I don't know is it ever good I entitlement doesn't sound like it's ever good but yeah I Health there is a healthy entitlement right and I think that is kind of the entitlement to like I'm allowed to want things and I'm allowed to at moments of my life even act on that to turn that want into a fulfillment of my want I think that actually goes back to what we were just saying like versus how can I please you like maybe I want to do something so I think that healthy entitlement that's a good thing but when I think when I hear parents say like please I just don't want an entitled kid they're not talking about that right and they're talking about and to me the story from my practice is just the key thing that makes us parents cringe was this family of seeing in New York City and they they were they were very wealthy and they had the 16-year-old son and they were flying I think back from Hawaii or to Hawaii they were just getting ready to board and first class was boarding and the sun goes up and they're like oh we were not like in first class we have to wait he had a basically a full tantrum in the airport like every parents worst nightmare literally and they came to me afterwards being like how did we like how did we get here right now this is a family in general it's true they they flew first class they had private planes had a lot of you know money but entitlement to me doesn't always have to be about money I'm going to give you my definition of entitlement I think it's very different but to me the definition like boundaries is useful because it gives you a pathway of what to do I think entitlement is the fear of frustration beautiful because if we go back okay that thing didn't start at 16 and if we we started you know I started kind of collecting stories and right this is a kid who they had and again like they had a driver there's nothing wrong with having a driver but I'm just thinking about like waiting for a Subway it's frustrating you just missed the subway we're going to be late like no right this was a kid who didn't make inci get older remember like didn't make the soccer team don't worry we have someone who's going to take you to the nearby Town New Jersey and get on that soccer team right um and I think about what this kid started to learn about being frustrated and it was kind of like frustration comes up and what gets layered next to it is someone else bringing you an exit frustration exit from frustration maybe even exit to success right and then I started to think like what would it be like if there was 16 years of kind of getting because it does Happ of that pattern and that circuit reinforcing because what you're really learning as a kid I'm frustrated and that's very overwhelming for me but like the adults around me must be scared of my frustration because they won't let me sit in it they won't let me feel it they will actually kind of run in circles to to not have me feel so I actually encode my frustration next to fear now I'm 16 and I'm expecting first class and I get you know lowly coach you know it's not people are like oh what a spoiled kid like I actually I I feel like this kid was like insanely vulnerable in that moment this kid was like I'm frustrated and what I expect to happen and what I know to happen isn't here and so it is explosive it appears as entitlement on the surface but is a deep intolerance and almost fear of frustration which is in your body so you're terrified of a feeling that is living in your body and it looks demanding because it kind of is desperate like you can't let this happen wow fear of frustration as the definition of entitlement uh lands like Square in the bullseye for me um and yes I think we all default to the kind of stereotypical example of the the ultra wealthy family kid uh there was that movie the toy in the 80s it's really Dreadful concept actually you know a kid that was just given everything and then wanted a person I it's really like talk about foul I mean it's just you know just bad at every level and then they tried to you know create this narrative where then you know there's a deeper understanding about humans and stuff that evolves from it but but the starting point point was you know and I I've observed this in certainly not my family but other families where kids are given everything they want it never feels like enough big surprise dopamine is a real thing the circuits recalibrate to a higher threshold they want more and more and more it's like that movie Wall Street what's your number more okay all right um nothing wrong with wanting things um but with without a sealing on any of that and without a a sealing on on Pleasure bounds on experience it crushes everybody that's also what that movie was about it just crushes people yeah so to build that into a child's neurology just seems like the worst possible thing um because it's not about the world being a place of immense possibility it's about the world being a place of of like snakes and broken glass everywhere except this narrow knife edge path that you follow that is all about in inite resources and ease that's right and I when I think it's fear is because if you're in fear you're in like a threat state which is why it when kids are in that state or adults it seems like nasty like and it's mean when you're you know and there's this like narrowing of your eyes right so I think that's really you know what's happening and it's not it's not always tied to money but the truth is and like money can easily buy a kid's way out of frustration and by the way it buys the parent out of having to tolerate their frustration while the kid is frustrated and so It's Tricky I think I've I've now like you know talked to a bunch of parents who grew up in um a very different way we very successful and I get it they're like I feel like I've I've earn i' literally have earned the right to have certain parts of my life be a lot easier right and like how do I though not how do I raise a kid who isn't entitled right and it is a conundrum right like I would think like you know we raise our raise our kids in a candy store it's hard to expect them to appreciate candy right and so like how do we how do we balance that gratitude the entitlement and I do think though that idea is like we just have to and sometimes like other people hearing this would be like yeah like my life is frustrating all the time and some peoples are right they won't end up with entitlement but for other families they almost have to be like I I have to like dose it I have to make sure my kids literally have experiences and I probably have to go through it too where we are almost like purposefully making sure they get enough of that you know so they can build different circuits yeah so much done P there I I think um it's clear that some of this is tied to financial means um I think it's a it's a pretty scary thing when someone looks out on the landcape of the world as infinite possibility um without any frustration um as we talked about earlier the ability to lean into hard things as as a skill that can extend to other things is is so valuable do you think that some of the smaller practices that any kid any parent any family regardless of means can lean into can really help there like like like um you know some people say grace or a prayer before a meal others simply Express gratitude but you know stopping and thinking about you know I mean being breathing bring being ambulatory being any number of of good things that allow us AG in life um about to eat food I mean those those moments I I think I think are I know that our our nervous system reflects on those yeah how could they not and just recognizing that at least something went into the creation of the the meal I think for like the entitlement stff and the frustration like there's all these small moments that we can start to make a difference and I think it's saying to yourself just cuz I can doesn't mean I will so like my kid's young and I picked them up from a play date and and I let's say I have a babysitter at home or my husband at home and I'm like I have to go to a store and some errands my K like can you drop me off first maybe I'm like you know what like no like you're going to come with me on I'm not going to say it this way but on boring errands because you just have to tolerate that like sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do and like you're not going to learn that by me telling you that you're going to learn that by experiencing that you know something with my kids you know the other day we were at an airport and like there were you know in the airport like it kind of winds around like to get and there was like no one there so they started to like duck under all the like things and it just made me think like as a small Moment Like entitlement also was like the rules don't apply to me in some ways I was like and I just remember you guys when we're in airports oh the the the lines leading up to security you cond you like mess them up and it wasn't like forever but I was like you guys like these things someone put these here for a reason and we're just going to it's like like I these things have to be such it's a small amount of frustration but she just like I don't always get to duck the line sometimes I have to like walk a little longer or I remember my kid saying and I'm not immune to this like I am in a financial position where I have someone come sometimes help me be my housekeeper right and she'll fold the laundry and I remember on a Sunday my son said to me when he was younger like why do we have to fold the laundry kind of like I don't think he said it but he was kind of like don't we have someone you know who could do that and I remember being like this is a moment where I could be like we're going to fold the laundry on Sundays you know who loves folding laundry maybe some people like I don't I don't love undoing the dishwasher it is inherently not that enjoyable but like and it's all frustrating it's just like not great and like I know I need to make my kids do that like they just have to go through that mundane thing um and so I think there's all of these moments taking your kid with you on errands you know doing the laundry right before you say to your kid let's go to try out on another soccer team just like oh you didn't make team maybe maybe Let It Go two days that's at least two more days of feeling upset and frustrated right they don't have to be these big Grand things but all of those little moments can add up in a really positive way what's your stance on household chores and should kids be paid for household chores um yes I have a whole guide to chores and allowance and I actually you know I think there's a lot of thought like should they be separate I don't know I think it could be done either way but to me the question for a parent is like what is the point for me like what is my goal for chores what is my goal for allowance right and I think that has to then structure how we do it so my guesses for chores part of it is I want my kid to number one maybe like help around the house want them to have that purpose also like I know for me for chores like sometimes your life involves doing boring things that is just true and like I want my kids to know that which means they have to experience it that's one of the reasons we do chores so for me if that's one of the reasons I'm not going to pay my kid because for me in my family what I think my kids need to get out of it it's just like knowing that sometimes you do boring things as part of being a good human for someone else that might be totally different so I think we just ask ourselves as parents like what am I trying to accomplish and then let me structure it around that across the course of today's discussion I I've been feeling both immense gratitude uh and relief for certain uh quote unquote hardships that I experienced um and things that my parents Made Me Do or ways that they were negligent and I was forced to figure things out also um you know some things so I was like oh like wish they had done this I think everyone listening to this will feel that way um and if you're lucky enough to still be in the parenting Child R or being a child process then uh there's still time so I guess there's always still time um in my introduction of this episode I I touched on a few of these but um tell us what you're doing these days to help parents and kids yeah um indirectly or directly to be more effective in their relationships and um and you know I know you you've written about this in books and you have a a wonderful social media account on Instagram and elsewhere I follow it um and it's there's oh so much learning there but um you know how are you translating this knowledge into um actionable programs yeah that is my like that is what gets me out of bed every morning is translating I always say deep thoughts actionable practical can do with today strategies yes that's that's the only way I can work I'm like tell me what to do to put that idea into action love it so you know a couple years ago one of the things that really struck me was just like I really did feel angry like this is so messed up we parents have the hardest job and it's the one that impacts the world the most and I don't think any of us think the world is in like a great place right now right n it's not right and this is and I remember someone coming up to me and saying parenting is also the only job you care about on your death bet and I think that's probably true if you have kids so like for every reason this should be the place that they're like that we invest the most or that the system is like set up to help us right and most people I know they don't want to parent the exact same way as they were parented maybe take parts and that is the way we'll parent it's just kind of the language we use and learning a new language we know is totally possible Right dual lingo has showed us that you can learn a new language it's hard sometimes you revert to your language of origin especially in stressful moments same thing parenting and then you go back and so I remember saying to some people around me like I want to create that like kind of dualingo for parents it is learning a new language and we should have a product where we have resources in one place we should be able to connect to other parents around the globe who are kind of doing this with us we should have access to experts we trust not because they always know better but they might just help us have a different mindset and some ideas to help us again and me my mind is just act more in line with your own values that's what it's about and so that's what we created and that's what I'm working on and that's our good inside membership and so excited about all the ways you know that's already impacting tens and tens of thousands of parents and that's where the resources are it's bite-sized it's actionable we're really known for our scripts it's like what do I say to my kid when like literally I like we have a script for that um and I think in a small way people like say like I come for the scripts and then I stay for the revolution like this is actually a journey of my own sturdiness and honestly becoming a sturdier more confident leader is the only way we can raise sturdy more confident kids well I've said this again and again throughout today's discussion but I love it I love uh the Gathering of it of information the organizing it and dispersing it in actionable ways and you've done all of that and you're continuing to do that and you also have the clinical background and you're a parent so you're speaking from professional and immediate experience and um you put oh so much work into it it I can tell that by this the directness and simplicity of the actionables that you've taught us today and also how much resides underneath those direct simple actionables um just beautiful I I've had many conversations on this podcast with many um brilliant people uh including yourself but this is um among the ones that I really say has has really me thinking and I don't think I've ever said wow so many times during a discussion and um there's just so muchled to be GED from from today's discussion thanks to you and just onf of myself and everyone listening um parents and kids and those who want to be parents and um and those who don't um and who have made the choice not to and are certainly engaged in other forms of relationship this is just absolute gold that you've provided us so thank you ever so much um your generosity your Clarity of communication and and your and the Heart behind it really comes through so thank you thank you so much thank you for joining me for today's discussion about parent child and other types of relationships with Dr Becky Kennedy to learn more about do Kennedy's work please see the links in the show note captions including the links to her best-selling book good inside and to the online learning platform for better parenting you can also find links to our social media accounts as I mentioned during today's episode she has a terrific Instagram account in which she regularly posts practical tools for better parenting and other types of relationships if you're learning from Andor enjoying this podcast please subscribe to our YouTube channel that's a terrific zeroc cost way to support us in addition please subscribe to the podcast on both Spotify and apple and on both Spotify and apple you can leave us up to a fstar review please check out the sponsors mentioned at the beginning and throughout today's episode that's the best way to support this podcast if you have questions or comments about the podcast or topics or guests that you'd like to suggest for the huberman Lab podcast please put those in the comment section on YouTube I do read all the comments not so much on today's episode but on many previous episodes of The hubman Lab podcast we discuss supplements while supplements aren't necessary for everybody many people derive tremendous benefit from them for 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