Bonus - A Game-Changing Strategy for Better Relationships

Speaker A
So I had the pleasure of meeting Maya Shanker at Ted. That's right. We were both Ted speakers in 2023. We were both nervous, and somehow we came upon each other and said, wait, I think I recognize you. And we just struck up a conversation.

Maya is the best. She's one of those people that is so many things at once. She's brilliant, she's thoughtful. She's reflective. She's so warm and so generous.

She's a cheerleader. She's a thought leader. And she is the host of a slight change of plans, which was named best show of the year by Apple in 2021. Her show features intensely honest conversations with people whose lives have been upended by a big change, like illness, loss, disaster, heartbreak. And this season, the show is focused on parenthood.

And we all know that that is an ultimate big change in our life. I was invited to talk to Maya for this series on parenthood, and I want to share the episode with you today right here. After listening, please know you can follow a slight change of plans wherever you listen to podcasts. To hear Maya's other conversations, I recommend the one with Brene Brown about her evolving relationship with parenting, the one with Professor Allison Gopnik on the science of how babies learn, and what that can teach us about creativity and other stories from other parents. I just know you're gonna love Maya show as much as I do.

You can find a slight change of plans wherever you get your podcasts.

Okay, big exciting announcement. We are giving the good inside potty program away for free. That's right. Get our two steps for potty success that includes a potty workshop and a potty reference guide. Because I know parents need something to reference in, well, the messy moments that sometimes accompany the potty process.

Now, you might be wondering, why is this free? What's the catch? There's no catch. I feel so confident that our potty program will take the stress out of this milestone for you and your kid, and it will actually give you and your kid feelings of empowerment and confidence. And I want every single family to go through this milestone with that type of positivity to unlock the good inside free potty program.

Follow the link in show notes and enter your email. I can't wait to hear your success stories. I want to talk about a group of kids that I'm particularly passionate about. Why? Because I think these kids are some of the most misunderstood kids in the world.

I see these kids as deeply feeling kids, and the world tends to see these kids as oppositional, defiant kids. What are the kids I'm talking about, they're the ones who have explosive meltdowns. They're the ones who tend to yell, I hate you, go away, when you know they actually need your help. They're the ones who will trip and fall and then blame you even though you were not around them at the time. These kids are misunderstood because they're seen for their difficult behaviors instead of for their underlying core struggles.

And because of this difference, I really went to work a while ago and created a completely different approach for these kids. An approach that parents tell me leads to the first time they've ever understood their kid, and then the first time they've ever seen productive change in their home. I want to make sure you know about my upcoming live deeply feeling kid workshop. You're going to get an approach that makes you say, oh, my goodness, this is my kid. And then you're going to get a set of strategies that actually work.

First things first. Follow the link in show notes to see if your child is a DFK and see exactly how we can help. All of it is available within membershipoodinside.com dot. I can't wait to connect with you inside.

The only true strategy we ever have with our kids is our relationship with them. Our kids will all get to an age, and it's all sooner than we think, where they're basically like, wait, I'm big now. Like, you literally can't put me to timeout, and I literally don't give two shits about your stickers. Like, seriously, that's what they're gonna say. And so the only thing between us is the quality of our relationship.

Maya Shanker
Doctor Becky Kennedy is a clinical psychologist known for her parenting advice. And her core message is, when we punish kids for their behavior, they may internalize the feeling that they're bad inside and can't change. Behavior is not identity. Like, there's a good kid, an in pain kid, probably a smart kid, a freaking funny kid underneath these really difficult behaviors. And I think when you start seeing that, you intervene totally differently in a way that feels better to the kid and the parent, and honestly, in a way that also is just much more effective for behavior change.

On today's episode, Doctor Becky helps us rethink parenting for the benefit of both kids and adults. I'm Maya Shunker, and this is a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become in the face of a big change.

Becky is the founder of Good Inside, a company that helps parents navigate the often challenging experience of raising kids. Good inside is also her recommended parenting strategy. She says parents should start with the assumption that their kids are good at their core. This might sound like a philosophical point, but Becky says it's actually a radical shift in mindset that can change how parents react when their kids misbehave. What I love about Becky's approach is how you can apply it to all kinds of relationships.

I'm not a parent, but I found myself thinking through these strategies in the context of my relationships with my coworkers and as an aunt to my nephews and nieces. Okay, now onto my conversation with Becky. I'd love to rewind the clock to this one day. Back in 2014, you were a therapist for parents struggling with kids who were misbehaving. Screaming, hitting, name calling.

You name it. Tell me more, Becky, about what you had been taught to recommend to these parents and then how things shifted for you on that one day. Yeah. So I was seeing parents who had come to me for hitting like their kid was in a hitting stage and also not listening and all these things. And I was teaching the parents how to give a timeout.

Speaker A
The program I was trained in, which was very esteemed, it was kind of like the one to go to around us, it was really all about timeouts, punishments, consequences, sticker charts, praising. So I was teaching them how to give a time out. But as I was talking, I had this very uncomfortable feeling in my body. That's the only way I can describe it. My heart was kind of racing.

It was loud enough in my body that I kind of had to slow down, be like, what is going on? Probably for the past couple months. At that point, I'd started becoming a little skeptical about this approach, unlike the months before, because I was like, this is so weird. Everything I know helps adults change their lives. It's kind of theoretically at odds with everything I'm telling parents do with kids.

I don't know, that can't, like, just didn't make sense to me that that would be like that. But I was like, I don't know. Keep going, keep going. And this day, the skepticism just reached a breaking point. I just said to them, I'm sorry, this is super awkward.

I actually don't believe anything I'm telling you right now. And I'll never forget their look. They were like, WTF? You came highly recommended to us. Like, you don't believe what you're telling us.

Well, like, do you believe something else? And I remember being like, I know there's a different way. I just. I don't know what that is yet. But I still kind of right now, feel like this isn't it.

And I don't know. It's kind of like all I've got right now, and maybe we can meet in a couple weeks. And they were like, yeah, like, just give us our money back. Like, I'm not. We're not coming back here.

Which, you know, I don't blame them. I would be like, yeah, I don't think so. Like, this is the weirdest session. But in that moment, I was just like, this isn't it? And it just.

It kind of, like, flew out of me. There was something that I read about your experience that day, which really struck me, which is that you noticed that you empathized with these misbehaving kids quite a lot. Like you liked them. Yeah. I feel like the kids with the worst behavior are the kids in the most pain.

You know, you're talking about, like, a four year old or a seven year old who's kind of, like, trying to wave a flag the best way they can, which is like, well, I know I can get people's attention from hitting or something, and I'm so out of control, and I feel like they're desperate calls for help. So I think I have a lot of empathy with, like, oh, this is a kid who's in so much need, and they're in so much pain, and then they tend to get the opposite of what they're in a very unsophisticated way, asking for. And so after that session, I was just like, wait, I don't think I believe in timeouts. But why? Like, what if we just strip back every assumption that we have?

What are we left with? So here's one assumption. If you don't punish a kid's behavior, you're basically telling them that the behavior is okay. Parents say this all the time. Why?

Like, if I yelled at my husband and he was like, whoa, that's not okay. And also, you must be upset. Let's get to the bottom of this. Do I think he's approving of my behavior? Like, no, that's absurd.

So another assumption we often have is our kids are kind of deliberately doing things to piss us off, or they could do better, and they're not. Mm hmm. I don't buy it. I just don't buy it. My kid doing something in the moment isn't about them giving me a hard time.

It's probably about them having a hard time. Massive difference. And so I feel like I was left with one single truth. And the only truth I was left with is kids are good inside inherently. They come into the world good inside.

And if that was the only thing I thought about first, and now I've kind of taken away all the floors of this other building, and that's my only foundation. What is a brand new building I would create from that foundation? Yeah. So there's many pragmatic benefits, Becky, to taking this approach and shifting your philosophy around the nature of your kids. And to me, the most important one is that when we assume kids are good inside and we are able to separate their behaviors from their identity, it allows us to be curious about.

Maya Shanker
About why they're engaging in bad behavior rather than simply trying to shape the behavior, or even worse, accepting it as fixed. So can you talk a little bit more about that curiosity? Yes. So, everyone listening to this, if you put your hands out in front of you and you look at just one hand, and we'll say about your kid, but it could be about an adult or anyone, let's say it's my son. Like, this is who my son is.

Speaker A
I'm looking at one hand. This is his identity. And then you put your other hand further away so there's space. And you look at that hand, and you say, this is my son's latest bad behavior. It might be he hit, or he said, I hate you, or he lied to your face.

Okay. And then you look at the first hand, and you're like, this is who he is. And the other hand is, this is what he did. And it's really important to keep those hands separate, because what we tend to do is, let's say we'll take something super triggering for a parent. Like I just said to my kid, did you just knock down your sister's tower, by the way?

I just saw him with my own eyes, knock down his sister's tower. And he just looks at me. He's like, no. Okay, so let's say he just lied literally to my face. So that's something he did.

It is so easy. And you'll hear it for the hands to collapse, and all of a sudden, that behavior becomes your kid, or your kid becomes that behavior. And when we do that, we have no curiosity, because we're really only curious when there's a gap. We're curious because we're like, I don't understand this. Why is that?

And now we can ask a very important question. Why would my good kid. And I'm looking at my identity hand to me, it's my right. And then I'll switch to my left, lie to my face. Right.

And then watch how easy it is for them to come together. Oh, because he doesn't respect me, and he just, like, thinks he can get away with it. And then I'd say to a parent in my office, wow. Wow, that was so fast. Like, there's no gap anymore.

Let's just move those hands away. Okay? That's one interpretation. It's not a useful interpretation. There's no more curiosity.

So, once you have that gap, why would my good kid lie to my face? Well, what I usually say, if I don't know, is I'll say to myself, why would I lie to someone's face? Even if it was someone I really loved and respected? What would happen? I'll say, my husband.

I love my husband. I respect my husband so much. So why would I lie to my husband? What about you, Maya? Why would you lie to their face of someone you even really do respect?

Maya Shanker
Because I didn't want to hurt their feelings. Yeah, I don't want to hurt their feelings. I feel insecure about the fact that I had made a big mistake, and I feel really embarrassed about it. And I love that one. It's so interesting.

Speaker A
People think when kids that say, lie to their face, and they'll also say they don't respect me, they'll also say, and I've said this about my kids, too, we're like, well, because they're a sociopath. I call that the fast forward error. We just, like, create a whole Persona for our kids forever based on a behavior. Well, they're just a sociopath. They have no empathy.

The reason kids lie and the reasons adults lie often is actually because they feel so guilty about the thing they did that they can no longer separate that bad behavior from their identity. So if lying to someone's face is so bad and lying or pushing down someone's tower, even if pushing down the tower is so bad that I then feel like a horrible, unlovable person, I will lie to anyone's face all day just so I don't have to face the reality of what I did. Understanding my kid's behavior does not mean I'm approving of my kid's behavior. But if we're curious about, let's say, lying about pushing down a tower, now we can actually get to the core of it. Now we can say, okay, so what would my kid need in that moment to actually manage how guilty they feel and to know I'm a safe person to tell bad things to.

Ooh. Now all of a sudden I'm going to make short term and long term change. And this, I mean, this does lead to one of the second benefits of the good inside approach. It prevents shame in kids and it gives them the feeling of being empowered with a good self that they can then improve. So tell me, tell me a bit more about that and what we do when we make kids feel like they're actually bad kids.

A phrase I think about a lot in psychology literature, which is, I am as I am seen. And I think this really relates to kids development. Meaning, if as a parent, you think of yourself as a child's mirror, then you are reflecting to them who they are. And kids take in the reflection, inform how they think about themselves and their self concept. This is one of my biggest problems with how common it is to just send kids away when they're struggling or punish them or just see them as their behavior.

We are trying to promote, quote, good behavior by reinforcing their bad identity. Like, again, just from a logic perspective, I'm like, why would that work? I'm telling my kid they're a bad kid and expecting them to be good. And so, so many parents will say in the midst of a tantrum, they'll carry them out of a room because they're just struggling to stay calm, bring them to their room, not to put them there, to sit with them, them there. And they'll say, you're a good kid having a hard time.

And so many parents will say, when they're like, when I said that for the first time, it felt powerful to me. I watched something happen for my kid. I watched it because when they feel like they're a good person having a hard time, now all of a sudden they're in the mindset of, oh, yeah, so what could I do? What's possible to have less of a hard time? One of the things I tend to say in sessions to parents is I say, look, there's a lot of stuff going on, and I promise you I'm actually going to help you shift it.

But I just want to start by saying, I like your kid. I like your kid. And Maya is so interesting. I feel like 80% of the time when the parents would cry, I feel. Like I'm going to cry right now.

Yeah. And I think it was probably the first time maybe they had heard someone especially quote a professional, say that the teacher's always, and I don't mean to throw teachers under the bus, teachers are doing, everyone's doing the best we can in these impossible situations, but they would have had teachers who are like, your kid's the troublemaker, your kid's getting suspended. Or they saw a clinician who worked a different way who'd give them some label, like, your kid is oppositional defiant disorder, and you're like, wow. Like, that's not a nice term for my child. Okay.

And starting with, like, I really like your kid. And by the way, the behaviors. No, no, totally not. Okay, we're gonna fix it. But I really like your kid.

Really was this manifestation of behavior is not identity. Like, there's a good kid, in pain kid, probably a smart kid, a freaking funny kid, a really, really motivated, driven kid underneath these really difficult behaviors. And I think when you start in seeing that, you intervene totally differently in a way that feels better to the kid and the parent, and honestly, in a way that also is just much more effective for behavior change. Yeah. I mean, it's really interesting because when you think about little kids, right, their prefrontal cortices are not developed.

Maya Shanker
They have a really hard time with self control. You could subscribe to the pavlovian model of things here, which is, okay, you do a bad thing and there's a punishment, and so the kid does less of the bad thing. But why is it that you think that that's not the right way for us to engage with kids? So let's say maybe I'm mad that my mom said I can't have a sleepover came out as I hate you. And my mom says, go to your room, and by the way, no dessert or no iPhone, whatever it is, for a week.

Speaker A
Okay, so you're like, okay, so they get a punishment. Won't they learn not to do that to me? What a kid really is encoding in their body is when I feel mad, that leads to problems in my relationship, and I don't get the things I want, so I will push away mad. Mad is bad. Okay?

That is not a long term strategy to manage, Matt, because we can't get rid of mad. And so if mad, by the time I'm 25, has learned zero skills, literally, I now have the same amount of skills to manage anger as I did when I was born. Like, zero. I have developed a system to try to push it away. Okay, you know what happens when you push away anger?

You are literally building the pressure in your body, getting ready for a moment where it's going to explode out of you. The feelings always win. They explode out of our body. They explode. Or they're internalized with deep shame, or.

They'Re internalized deep shame. With chronic health problems, we know people have so many things that repressed or suppressed or pushed away feelings lead to. Now, I want to show the opposite because I think people really misunderstand this. And I've never considered good inside to be, quote, gentle parenting, but people kind of put us in that category, so they'll say, oh, so it's just okay that my kid says, I hate you? Like, here's what an intervention from good inside would not look like or sound like, oh, sweetie, you have such big feelings.

You really want to sleep over. Let that anger out. No, no, no, no. Here's what I'm talking about as, like, a sturdy intervention. Hey, you're really upset that you can't have a sleepover.

I get it. I also know there's another way you can say that to me. And I care about your being disappointed, and I'd love to talk that out with you. And we can do that when we both take a couple deep breaths and use other language. Like, I'm actually teaching my kid, it's okay to be mad.

Kids can never learn to regulate feelings we don't allow them to have. The only true strategy we ever have with our kids is our relationship with them. Our kids will all get to an age, and it's all sooner than we think, where they're basically like, wait, I'm big now. Like, you literally can't put me into time out. And I literally don't give two shits about your stickers.

Like, seriously, that's what they're gonna say. And so the only thing between us is the quality of our relationship is how connected we are. And I just don't know anyone who looks back in their childhood. And it's like, when my parents sent me to my room, it was so productive. I was just, like, googling, like, how to express my anger in a healthy way.

And I was kind of sitting in my bed being like, it is really true. My parent is helping me reflect. No, you know what you're doing. You're thinking about how misunderstood you are. You are thinking about how mad you are that your iPad was just taken away, which literally stops you from thinking about the behavior in the first place.

You have righteous indignation. It is so counterproductive. In reality, it just feels good to a parent because you get to vomit your frustration onto your kid momentarily, and you have the illusion of having an impact because in the moment, they look upset by your consequence. And on that point, I think it's valuable to share that you don't see the good inside principle simply applying to children. It applies to parents.

Maya Shanker
And this is so important because how many friends of mine are crippled by guilt, are so frustrated that they aren't the parent they wish they were going to be, who get annoyed every time they find themselves yelling because they committed to themselves not to yell. And so talk to me a bit more about how we can avoid shame spirals and all sorts of other counterproductive things that parents do when they're all just trying their best. Yes, it is the exact same thing the approach does for parents. Right? I mean, it's such a bigger picture conversation, but, like, we are in a messed up system as parents, we are not set up for success.

Speaker A
Like, we are not given training for this. And no, parenting does not come natural. And for women, no, there's not some, quote, maternal instinct that is a concept someone else made up to make us feel bad about ourselves and keep us small. Preach, girl, preach. It really is.

Maya Shanker
I love it that f. That. And, you know, I often think that good inside is like, a language parents are learning. And really, the language of parenting we all speak naturally is the language we were parented in, simply. And if I told you, hey, I was brought up speaking English and I really want to bring up my kids in Mandarin, I think you would tell me, whoa, okay, like, first of all, that's amazing that that's going to be challenging.

Speaker A
It's definitely possible. But I'm pretty sure you would also say to me, in my most high stress moments with my kids, I'd probably revert to English. I just would. Right? And that doesn't mean my Mandarin isn't coming along.

It doesn't mean all is lost. And I messed up my kids forever, and now they'll never know Mandarin. We say this to ourselves all the time. Like, I'm trying to connect to my kids, and I yelled at them and I called them a spoiled brat and I messed them up forever. No, like, that was a high stress moment reverted, right?

I forgot who said this to me. I'm going to say it to you because it's so powerful, I have to get it right. Kind of like in a high stress moments, we don't rise to the occasion. We fall to the level of our training. And that doesn't mean you're a horrible person.

Let's take away that shame. Let's stay connected to yourself. That whole idea of behavior versus identity, that's how I calm myself down after I yell at my kids. I say, Becky, I'm a good parent who is having a hard time. I am not defined by my latest behavior.

I am good inside. I am good inside. And then you know what I do next because, yes, that's my responsibility, is I go back to skills. What skills do I need? Do I have to pay attention to my exhaustion sooner?

Because if I don't guess what, it explodes as anger toward my kid. You know what? I actually haven't worked out this week or really seen my friends. And those are ways I take care of my non caregiving parts of myself. And so I know I need to do that so I don't get to my breaking point as soon.

And it's really that same system applied to ourselves.

Maya Shanker
After the break, Becky shares strategies for putting these ideas into practice. We'll be back in a moment with a slight change of plans.

Speaker A
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Maya Shanker
So let's say there's a listener out there. This is the first time they're acquainting themselves with a good inside approach and they're like, okay, Becky, I'm committing to this. You need to put this into practice, though. Great. Tell me about this concept of the most generous interpretation.

Speaker A
So, first off, you're listening to this and this is a new idea and you're still listening. And I this is the bottom of my heart. I hope you give yourself credit for the bravery it takes to consider something new. It's such a brave thing. And you obviously know this better than anyone to even consider taking a different path is so vulnerable because we're faced with, like, oh, did I do it wrong?

Did I mess up my kid forever? My answer is no to both questions. And by the way, if you take a different path, you'll be like me. They'll still be moments you hear yourself saying, go to your room, no iPad for a week. And I'm like, why did I say that?

I just. I don't want to say that. Why did I say that? Like, we all say these things. No one is perfect.

Definitely not me. I do think, like you said, this concept of MGI, most generous interpretation is such a concrete way to start thinking in a different way. So, really, the simple exercise is, everybody, right now, think about a behavior in your kid, or it could be your partner or your colleague or your mother in law, whoever it is that feels like a bad behavior, and it's kind of something that gets under your skin. So maybe I'll say, for my daughter, it's screaming at me when she could just say, I didn't like that, right? Screaming.

Maya Shanker
A colleague of mine who interrupts me in meetings when I'm mid principal, perfect example. My colleague is always interrupting me. And then just ask yourself this irony. I just interrupted you. Sorry to make that point.

Whoops. So I would say, what is my most generous interpretation of Maya's interrupting me, right? But what is my most generous interpretation of. And then fill in the blank. What is my most generous interpretation of my daughter continuing to jump on the couch after I said, please stop jumping on the couch?

Speaker A
What is my most generous interpretation of my daughter lying to my face? What is my most generous interpretation of why my partner came home after 06:00 p.m. when we had talked about my partner coming home at 05:30 p.m. and to be clear, when you come up with the most generous interpretation, the action you take next isn't saying to the other person, it's fine that you did that. No.

What a most generous interpretation lens does for you is it always helps you see that there is a good person under a bad behavior. And what it really does is it helps you think, like, well, what was going on for that person. Like, what else could have been their positive intent, even if it wasn't acted out in their behavior? And what it does is it also helps you intervene from a place of groundedness and of seeing the other person as a teammate. Me and Maya are on a team against interrupting.

Me and my husband are on a team against poor communication around what time he was going to be home. From work. Me and my daughter are actually on the same team against this hitting problem because the truth is she doesn't want to be doing it either. And that that changes everything. You talk in your book about one of the most important tools for parents being the concept of repair.

Maya Shanker
So tell me more about rupture and repair and how owning this as a parent can actually improve things. So a rupture is really any moment in a relationship where you feel disconnected. A rupture is me yelling at my kid, what's wrong with you? Or me calling them, you know, a name. I cannot believe you freaked out in that toy story.

Speaker A
You're such a spoiled brat. A rupture can also be my kid wanting to talk to me about something and me invalidating it or rushing past it. I'm really upset about not making the soccer team. Oh, you're so dramatic. It's not a big deal.

You made the basketball team. That could be a rupture too. So it's really like a break in your connection with someone. And a repair is the process of going back to that moment of disconnection, taking responsibility for your part in that event, helping the other person understand it in a different way. And I think also stating what you would do differently the next time.

Events in and of themselves are not what have a negative impact on kids. And so actually, this understanding is huge. So an event, like, I just screamed my head off at my kids. Now, is that an amazing event for a kid? Of course not.

It's not a great event. But that event isn't having the impact on your kids that you think it is. What has an impact on a kid and their development is how an event gets processed for them. It's actually more about what happens after the event. There's two things that can happen.

An event is followed by aloneness, and nobody ever talks to me about it and no one ever mentions it again. So after an overwhelming event, I guess I'm just a five year old trying to process this on my own. There's that, or there's the same event. And then after, at some point, I have a loving, safe, trusted adult who connects with me and helps me understand that eventually and gives me more coherence about the event and helps me regulate my feelings through that process. Same event, two totally different ways of processing it and two completely different outcomes.

And the difference is actually all about the relationship we have with someone after the event. Yeah, you have a great quote, which is that repair gives a not great chapter a different ending and allows for a different lesson to be learned. In this case, the not great chapter was yelling at your kid. Yes. So a repair for yelling at my son might sound like, hey, earlier today, I screamed at you in the kitchen, and I'm sorry.

And I think I was just having a really hard time. I was stressed, and that came out as a yell. It wasn't your fault. And I'm working on managing my own frustration, so even when I'm frustrated, it doesn't come out in a yell. And if that all seems too complicated, just saying to a kid, I'm sorry I yelled.

That wasn't your fault. I love you is like shorthand, and I'm happy to double click on, it wasn't your fault. Because I know it's kind of a complicated thing because. Yeah. Cause you're like, it is kind of your fault.

Maya Shanker
You threw your dinner all over the room and yelled at me for whatever. Yeah. So how do you get there? Here's. Here's how I get there.

Speaker A
I was having some set of feelings that were bigger than my ability to regulate those feelings that has to do with the event in front of me. But honestly, this is the hard truth. My regulation skills and patterns predated my son's existence. They're in my body. Like, how able am I, in general, to deal with the frustration?

How able am I to keep myself regulated and grounded when I'm upset? How able am I to communicate with someone when I'm frustrated with them in a way that's still respectful? Those things have to do with me. He didn't, quote, make me yell. An event happened between us.

I felt frustrated. And at the point, the frustration started in my body. It's kind of my own skills that relate to how I handle it. The more we teach our kids that we're blaming them for our lack of coping skills or inability to access them in the moment. That creates a whole set of not so great patterns intergenerationally that I actually don't think anyone actually wants to pass on to their kids.

Plus, one last thing. It is the most disempowering thing to me. Like, when parents say, but if my kid didn't complain about dinner, I wouldn't yell. Look, I know yelling doesn't feel great to you. It doesn't feel great to anyone.

So you're saying that you're willing to, like, depend on your four year old, changing what they say for you to behave in a way that's in line with your values. Like, I'm not willing to make that bet. My self esteem is way too important to me to leave it dependent on my kid. So I think that's another perspective on it. Yeah, and there's an irony because there's actually just parallel processes happening that are very similar to one another, which is the kid's disappointed with the meal and can't manage the big emotions, so they throw their dinner plate and food everywhere.

Maya Shanker
The mom or dad can't handle the behaviors of the kid, and then they can't regulate themselves. And so maybe we can bridge the empathy gap just a little bit if we realize the inherent psychological similarities between what both parent and child are managing in that moment. That's right. So if our kids dysregulated emotion is just met with our dysregulated emotion, then what they're building in their body in terms of their circuits and patterns of learning of how the world works is my emotion that was too big for me gets layered on top of my parents emotion that was too big for them. Guess what?

Speaker A
I'm actually making it harder for my kid to learn how to regulate their own emotions because of that association. What do you say to parents who are afraid that it's just too late for them to implement your approach? So they're thinking, look, this all sounds great, but my kid is 24, and so I'm pretty sure that I missed the window. It is never too late. It is never too late.

Is it going to take effort to reestablish a connection with your 24 year old? 100%, just like it would take effort to learn a new language. But ironically, the belief that it's too late is the single biggest thing that stops us from change. And then I would say, like, what is one thing? What is one thing you can do?

And to me, when we're trying to establish a closer relationship with our kids or anyone, repair is often, like, the best starting point. If you just imagine your own parent calling you, like, hey, like, I've been thinking a lot about our relationship and the way I did things, and I just. I know there were a lot of things that felt really bad to you, and I get that, and you were right to feel that way. And I care about you, and I know we can't do a complete 180 right now, but I'm willing to listen, and I want to do things differently. I just don't know one adult who's like, yeah, it's too late.

Like, that would do nothing. I know plenty of adults who would say, I don't know. I might still have my guard up, and that wouldn't change everything. And I'd say, good. Now, one conversation shouldn't change everything, but it might change one thing or it might change some things.

And I think if we know that, it would have that impact on us. Well, our kids are younger than us, and they're even more open as a result. And I think that's a great starting point. I think I just have a reflection, which is just with all of these tools and all of these techniques, parenting is just so freaking hard. And I'm curious if you're willing to share, like, when you maybe imagine parenthood and what it was going to be like, and then you experienced the reality, what have you found to be the most surprising, hard component of being a parent?

Yeah, I think on some level, unconsciously, we think our kids are gonna heal us. And the truth is, our kids trigger us like they trigger us all the time. And so in that way, I think what I was unprepared for, and I think most people aren't prepared for, is, like, parenting is just an exercise in self development. If we're willing to take it on, our kids trigger us, which really mean, oh, they bring up a lot of unresolved, unprocessed things in us. And am I willing to look in and say, okay, can I use those and grow?

Because obviously it'll help me grow as a parent. Ironically, it'll actually help me grow more as a person because these things always kind of lived within me, but they just weren't triggered as often. You know, I had my first kid, and he just temperamentally was like a kind of easier kid. I didn't realize at the time he had tantrums, but looking back, he really was pretty easy. And I did all these parenting things, and it's not like he said, thank you, mommy, but he did kind of, like, do well when I did them.

And I remember I'd have these parents in my private practice who'd be like, I'm doing the thing. You're telling me, but my kid, they yell, or it's not changing. In the back of my head, I'd be like, you're probably not doing it right, you know? But then I'd be like, I wouldn't say that to their face. And then I had my second kid, and I was like, oh, my goodness.

Like, I thought I had this down a little bit. And all those things those parents were saying to me in my practice, that's happening now. Yeah, like, oh, my goodness, my second. I feel like it's a lot more effort on my part to show up the way she would need. And also, therefore.

Yeah. Like, we have more rupture moments for sure, because of also what she triggers in me. Yeah. What you're sharing with me, Becky, is really profound because I think we think of parenting as the phase in life where we've accumulated all of this wisdom, and now it's time to impart that wisdom on these little people. Right.

Maya Shanker
And I think what you're teaching me in this moment is actually what kids do is they hold up a mirror to you, and actually it's self learning. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. You know, I always think about the prologue from far from the tree, which is this amazing book by Andrew Solomon. Yeah. And I think, you know, his first line is, there's no such thing as reproduction.

Speaker A
And I think that says a lot about parenting. We use this word reproduction as if we reproduce. And he says a child is an act of production. Yes, you produce. And what he says is parenting is being forever cast into a relationship with a stranger.

And it's so dark, but it's so true. And he's like, people don't say it that way because no one would have kids. They'd be like, I don't know who this stranger is. I don't know if I want to live with this kid my whole life. Yeah, it's so intimidating.

It's kind of what it is. And I think that brings up so much for us. You learn way more about yourself than you will ever teach your child, and that's. That's tiring. And I think, again, it's just very different than the societal view and expectations of parenting.

I feel like it's so important to say it how it really is because hopefully there'll be generations who have kids at some point and can just say, I knew it would be hard.

Maya Shanker
Hey, thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed my conversation with Doctor Becky, I recommend checking out last week's episode with developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik. We talk about how children are the best learners we know of in the universe and what they can teach us about creativity and being more open to taking risks. And join me next week when I talk with someone who, honestly, I'm kind of obsessed with Suleika Jawad. She's the author of the best selling memoir between two kingdoms, and she shares her story of being diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia in her early twenties.

We talk about the isolation of illness and recovery, why she hates the trope of the hero's journey in cancer stories, and the solace in finding creativity and community throughout it all. You won't want to miss this one. I'll see you next week.

A slight change of plans is created, written, and executive produced by me, Maya Shankar. The slight change family includes our showrunner, Tyler Green, our senior editor, Kate Parkinson Morgan, our senior producer Tricia Bobita, and our engineer, Erica Huang. Luis Guerra wrote our delightful theme song, and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. A slight change of plans is a production of Pushkin Industries, so a big thanks to everyone there. And, of course, a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee.

You can follow a slight change of plans on instagram. Doctor Mayashunker. See you next week.

Speaker A
Like, if I was going out dinner with my husband, and he was like, get on your shoes by the time I count to three or you don't get dessert tonight. And if I said, I'm not getting in my shoes, I just don't know one person who'd say, becky, like, I think you have a listening problem. Like, I think they'd be like, Becky, I think you have a husband problem. Like, what is that guy's deal?

Bonus - A Game-Changing Strategy for Better Relationships

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1. Introduction

2. Rethinking Discipline

3. Behavioral Insights

4. The Impact of Empathy

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