← Good Inside with Dr. Becky
Good Inside with Dr. Becky
Why Habits Feel Hard with Charles Duhigg
00:51:28
Dr. Becky and Charles Duhigg unpack habit science, why clarity creates hope, and how small shifts (better cues, named rewards, and repair over punishment) can lower tension and build connection at home - with your partner, your kids, and yourself. This episode is for anyone who wants to communicate more clearly and make change finally stick.
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- [00:00]
A
It's the new year. And I know for me, this is the time of year that I do from a place of empowerment, not pressure. Think about habits. Think about small things. I want to shift. And so there just couldn't be a better time to have a conversation with Charles Duhigg. He is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. He is the author of the Power of Habit and Super Communicators. But before you get any ideas about, this is gonna feel heavy. This is gonna feel impossible. One more thing to make me feel like I'm not doing enough. No. Us parents, we do not have time for that. Charles is someone I've gotten to know over the last couple years, and he talks about habits and communication in a way that feels new and empowering and makes you have the thought, oh, that's simple. I can do that today. And that's why I love talking to him. And I love the conversation you're about to hear. This episode is about starting the year with intention, but not morality. Intention, not perfect intention, just the intention of there might be one small thing I want to change that will make the rest of my year better. And I think that's something we could all use. I'm Dr. Becky, and this is good inside. We'll be back right after this. Hi, Charles.
- [01:14]
B
Hey. How are you?
- [01:15]
A
I'm good. I've been waiting for this conversation because there's just so much overlap. And whenever I hear you speak, it just crystallizes things that have been floating around for me, but living without an organized way of putting things together and moving it forward. And I'm just so grateful for your work and how practical it is.
- [01:36]
B
It's always so much fun to talk to you. I'm so excited to be able to do it on tape. That's even better because I get to review it sometime.
- [01:43]
A
Exactly. Okay, so we're gonna go in a bunch of different directions, but let's start here. You've spent years studying habits, studying communication, and you're a dad. So what I want to start with is how has seriously, your experience around fatherhood impacted the way you think about habits and communication.
- [02:04]
B
That's a great question. And I think in every way possible. So I have two boys. They're 14 and 17 years old. And as you know, once you have kids, like, you have all these grand theories before you become a parent. Right? Like, this is how I'm going to raise my kids, and this is what they're going to be like, and I'm never going to do this thing that my parents did. And then that falls apart. Like, that falls apart immediately. It's like once you experience the fog of war, all your plans. Plans fall, go out the window. But I will say the thing that I've tried to do again and again and again is I've tried to make them feel like they have power over these things that oftentimes we feel powerless about, right? Like, when it comes to habits, people often feel powerless over their habits, over changing their habits or creating better habits. And that's often because they don't. Just don't understand how habits work. Right. They don't understand the neuroscience of habits and how to change them in our lives. Communication oftentimes, you know, I. One of my kids, at one point, there was someone that he. It was a. A girl, and he really wanted to, like, sort of connect with her. And he was like, every time I talk to her, it just. It feels like there's like we can't connect. And I was like, you know, actually, that's totally normal. And I know that you. That feels frustrating to you, but there's a science behind how communication works. And if you learn it, then these things that seem like big mysteries suddenly become tools that you can use. So that's the thing. I'm not sure I'm a great dad, and I'm not sure I give them the right lessons. But I think the lessons I give them are, there are things in your life that feel out of your control, that are incredibly within your control once you understand them. And that's what I've tried to do with books and with parenting.
- [03:44]
A
But what I love about that, and this is where we probably have a lot of overlap, is so much of what's hard. We think about the moment or the behavior, right? Or I take kids, oh, my kid's so rude. They're having these tantrums, or I don't know how to talk to girls, whatever it is. And we focus on these behaviors. But so much at the core is actually the confusion, like I find with parents. And it's interesting because this happens all the time, where a kid isn't sleeping for various reasons. Parent hasn't gotten sleep in forever. Calling out in the middle of the night. And it's interesting as an example, they take our sleep course and they go, I feel like a million bucks. You haven't even seen your kid yet, and nothing's changed. Why do you feel better? But you know what that proves to me? It wasn't the lack of sleeping. Not to say that's not a problem. It's the confusion. And when you understand and when you have clarity, you have this hopefulness and energy boost, and that's often the missing piece. And so tell me about that in terms of let's start with habits. Cause you said something, I wrote it down. People just don't understand how habits work. And I'm like, oh, my goodness, I don't understand how habits work. I'm one of those people. So explain it to me. And then let's bring it back, actually, to maybe how that has helped with parenting or helped your kids or can help people here.
- [04:58]
B
Absolutely. So the most important thing to realize is, and we're living through this golden age of understanding habit formation because of advances in neuroscience and data collection. The most important thing to understand is that we think of a habit as being one thing, but actually a habit is made up of three different parts. The first part is that there's a cue, which is like a trigger for an automatic behavior to start. And when that cue, when we encounter that cue, we might not even recognize that we've encountered a cue. But our brain, particularly the part of our brain known as the basal ganglia, sees that cue, and it says, oh, I know what to do right now, and I'm going to make it happen automatically. And that gets us to the second part. So the cue, then the routine, which is the behavior, the thing that we think of as a habit, the thing that Oprah talks about and Aristotle talks about, the routine, is the behavior that we actually do. And when we do that routine, it delivers the third part of this habit loop, which is the reward. Every habit in your life delivers to you. A reward, whether you're aware of it or not. And there's been this research done by Wendy wood out of USC, who has found that about 40 to 45% of what we do every day is a habit. Right? We think of it as a decision, but it's actually this process of seeing a cue automatically doing the behavior, the routine, and then receiving a reward for that. When you back your car out of your driveway and you don't really have to think about it, you do it on habit. Now, when you make it safely into the street, there's a small dopamine release in your brain that creates a reward sensation. Now, you're not aware of this, and you don't pay any attention to it, but your basal ganglia does. And it says, okay, I like this reward. Next time I need to back the car to the driveway, I'm just going to make it easier and easier and more and more automatic because it's an easy way for me to get this reward. And so what we know is that focusing on the routine, that's one way to change a habit, but that's the hardest way. An easier way is to focus on the cue and the reward and let the behavior sort of unfold from there.
- [06:55]
A
Okay. I'm gonna share with you something that I do in my house. And I have to be honest, I'm just gonna pat myself a little on the back for this one. Okay. Which I don't always do, but I feel like without realizing, did I do this? Okay. So I go back however many years for my 14 year old. I'm like, why is he never classic picking his towel off the ground? Like, it just triggers me for some reason. It tells me the story that my child doesn't appreciate anything if he doesn't do this. Whatever. That's my trigger. And I know maybe this is Q. I want to have certain roles with my son forever. When he's really going through something hard, I want to be one of the people he can call. But towel rememberer, it's just not high on my list. Okay. I don't know about you. It's just I can do other things.
- [07:41]
B
In my time entirely.
- [07:44]
A
All right. I mean, we're busy people, Charles. So, like, I know so many times if I think about it with your language, the cue for our kids, for the towels or the water bottles, is us telling them or us doing it. And I always say to parents, don't lock yourself into a job. You are trying to work your way out of the math. Doesn't math? So one of the things I did when he was young is I said, you know what? It's been really hard to remember to pick up your towel. Something's happening. You're a smart kid. You're a good kid, but it keeps not happening. I wonder how you could remember. And he's like, I don't know. And then I like, I feel like somebody's gotta bring him to water. I was like. I literally said, I just wish there was, like, a type of note that had sticky qualities that you could, like, put on the wall. Okay. And he goes, I'll post it. And I literally was like, oh. Oh, my goodness. Amazing. And then he goes, can you write it for me? And that's where I got stirred. I was like, no way. I was like, I'm not gonna do something for you. I know. You could do for yourself. You could write it. And I kind of sat with him. He wrote Something, it was like, towel. He put it by his door, and the first couple of times he did it, all I said was like, I noticed you picked up your towel. Thank you. So I'm just trying to back into that.
- [08:54]
B
I love this. And I go through the exact same thing with my kids leaving their dishes on the table in front of the tv. It makes me absolutely insane. So, okay, so what I love about this is that not only were you teaching him to develop a better new habit, you were teaching him how habits work. And that's really powerful, right? You were giving him some insight into the structure. So the cue obviously, is he sees that note, that post it, that says towel, right? And that's become. What's amazing about cues is that at first we notice them and then we stop noticing them, but they still work again. Because our brain, our brain is a cognitive miser, right? That basal ganglia, it wants to make everything into a habit and use as little energy as possible. And so when it sees that note, it makes it into a cue that we'll notice, even if we don't notice that we're noticing it. So that's the cue. The routine is he goes and he picks up his towel. And then the best part is you gave him a reward, and you gave him the most powerful kind of reward, which is that you gave him an emotional reward. We know that emotional rewards are anywhere from 10 to 100 times more powerful than some kind of material reward or transactional reward.
- [10:02]
A
Wait, sorry, we do not know that. Like, you know that. I do not know that. So can you say that again? Can you say that again?
- [10:08]
B
Humanity, Humanity knows that, like, the most powerful rewards are always emotional rewards. And so if you were to say to your son, hey, look, every time I walk into your room and I notice there's not a towel in there, I'm giving you a dollar. He would like that, right? He would probably start paying attention, but it would wear off after a little while. But if, when you notice him picking up the towel, you say, look, I just want to let you know, thank you. Like, I'm so proud of you. Like, you're becoming such a mature young man. That is like gold. And frankly, he's going to remember that for years, right? We all remember when our parents told us that we were suddenly mature and we felt so good about ourselves. So you created the habit loop perfectly. You helped him find a cue. You guys specified what the routine is. You delivered to him a reward, and that's really powerful. The other aspect of this is that we can also think in terms of how do we create negative rewards, Right? And I don't use the word punishment because it's not really a punishment. We should think of it as a negative reward. So my kids, when they leave their dishes out, we sit down and I say, look, let's go through what we've talked about before. Every time I stand up from the couch, I'm going to think to myself, are there dishes in front of me? And if there are dishes in front of you, the routine should be take them to the sink. And you should. And, like, if you do this, I appreciate it. And I will definitely let you know how much I appreciate it. Those times, though, that I notice that you've forgotten, what I'm going to do is I'm going to. No matter where you are in the house, no matter if you're out with your friends, I'm going to call you or text you and say, can you please come back and put your dishes away? Now, the reason why this is, this isn't a punishment, this is a negative reward is because it's giving them an opportunity to repair the situation in a way that is meaningful to you. And so when we think about using negative reinforcement punishments, I think a much better. And you're the expert on this, so I'd be really curious your thoughts. I think the much better way to structure this is to say, here is an opportunity to repair the situation, because once you do, I'm going to give you all those rewards that you so justly deserve.
- [12:14]
A
Oh, now you're really getting me going, Charles. And these are things I never thought about. But here's my response. I think we all know whether someone's doing something to us or for us. I just think as humans, you feel the difference. Even if the intervention is the same. If I take phones, let's say I have a new rule that my kid can't sleep with their phone in their room. Let's just take that. The intervention can look the same. A kid will feel whether you are doing that same thing on the surface to them or for them, which I think relates. Punishment is something you do to someone. You do it to someone. It's doing it in the mindset of, like, I don't really like this person in the moment. I'm doing this to them. They're my enemy. The very same thing could be done from a very different mindset and intention. I'm doing this for them. So if I take the phone example, look, you've been on your phone at night. I told you, you can't. I'm taking it. This is so bad for your brain. I don't care what you have to say, like, okay, like, I can do that, but I can tell you how that would feel. Like, I don't even hear what you're saying. All I feel is, you think I'm a bad person. You kind of hate me right now. You're vomiting your own frustration on me, like, okay, versus, hey, I wanna tell you about a decision I've made. Starting tonight, you're not gonna have your phone in your room. And I wanna tell you why. I have learned new information about how important sleep is. And the other thing, I don't know if I've even said to you directly is my number one job is often to make decisions that I believe are good for you long term, even if you don't like them. And that's actually a sign of how much I love you. It actually comes, even if it doesn't feel like that, from protecting you. And that's where this decision comes from. I just feel like it's the same as what you're saying, which is you want to set up your kids to be responsible individuals who don't think a clean house just happens magically and who they have impact and responsibility. You believe that's in your value system. It's part of your job. In small moments, and one of the moments that matters to you, it could be a million, someone being like, I have to make my kids clear their plate. I personally agree, but there's a million ways to do that. And if that's one of your methods, one of the reasons you're saying, hey, I noticed you didn't clear it, like, I'd like you to come back and do it, is actually because you think you're doing that for them.
- [14:28]
B
That's exactly right. And I, And I think we can even take it a step further and have our kids identify that reward. When you say to your, say to your kid, I'm going to take the phone out of the room and say, just out of curiosity, when you wake up in the morning after a really good night's sleep, do you feel better that day? Like, is that. And of course they're going to say yes. And when I ask my kids, do you, like, when you come home and the house is so clean and it's so relaxing, how does that, how does that hit you? And what's interesting is my younger son, whose room is a disaster, he'll say something like, you know, actually, I don't Care that there's clothes all over the floors on my. In my room. But when I'm in the living room, it's nice when everything's kind of, like, put away, right? Like, it's just kind of relaxing. And what I love about that is that they're identifying rewards for themselves. They're saying, look, this reward of cleanliness, it doesn't. Doesn't work in my room. Which is fine because I never go in their room. And they can be as messy as they want it to be. But it does work. This is a reward that I'm acknowledging as a reward in the rest of the house. And so therefore, I'm seeing myself. And this gets us to something that's kind of important, that we know about rewards, which is recognizing a reward as a reward actually makes it more rewarding.
- [15:42]
A
So.
- [15:43]
B
And this kind of makes sense when you think about it. If. If you eat a salad today instead of eating an unhealthy sandwich, you'll. You'll feel okay about yourself. But if after eating that salad, you say to yourself, you know what I like. I'm gonna go brag to my husband tonight that I didn't eat the unhealthy sandwich. I ate the salad, that makes the reward even more rewarding. The salience of a reward expands when we recognize it as a reward. And so the more that we help our kids recognize those rewards, the more we're empowering them to be in control of their behavior.
- [16:16]
A
Charles, I love talking to people just like you who say something in a totally different way, and there's like, this vibing, because what I call that is the difference between the experience and the story you tell yourself, or the experience and the wrapper. So let's say inside the candy is what happened, but the wrapper really. Experience. It really impacts how you experience the candy. And even if the candy's good, the wrapper matters. The wrapper even to tell yourself, I'm proud of that decision. It's something that's gonna make me feel good. Next week already is gonna make the thing feel better. And in the absence of a story, you don't know the story your body's telling yourself. It might be saying no story at all, which means you're kind of depriving yourself of the experience of feeling rewarded.
- [16:58]
B
That's exactly it. Or you're leaving it up to chance. Right? And the thing about habit formation is that we think of it as something that happens to us. We think of it as chance. I grew up this way, and so I have these Ha. Or I was unlucky enough to start smoking at one point. And so I have these habits. But what we know is that habits are not something that happened to us. Habits are something that once we understand how they work, we have the control to create and to change. There is someone on this planet who gave up smoking yesterday and will never have another cigarette. There is someone who went on a diet today and they're going to lose £25 over the next 12 months. Anyone can change their habit. We just have to understand how they work so that we know which gears to fiddle with.
- [17:39]
A
Yeah. You know, and the other thing I just wanna add, especially for parents listening. Cause I love this idea of cue habit reward, but there's a part of it and I'm curious your reaction. Okay. Because sometimes we talk to our kids about not having the phone in the room or clearing, you know, their plate and they're like, I don't care. I don't care if my room's clean. I don't feel better in the morning. And I do think, and I think I've seen this from working with so many kids and teens in my practice, that there is a reward that you might never hear from your kid or you won't hear for 10, 20 years. The feeling a kid has when they feel like a parent is protecting their long term interest despite their protest and tantrums, which are all things they need to do, especially as they get older, just to say, I'm my own person, but the comfort in their body when they go to bed and they have a half smile, thinking, my parent believes in me, My parent's holding me to a higher standard, My parent is holding boundaries and is protecting me. I think there's a type of reward there as a parent that you might never explicitly get validation for. But I just know from so many teens it is there. And we kind of have to trust that as an adult.
- [19:02]
B
That's absolutely right. And I think your definition of something we do for, for someone and they won't thank us for 10 or 20 years is like the perfect definition of being a parent. Right. But, but to your point, the science actually says you're exactly right. And you know, I mentioned that the most powerful rewards are almost always emotional rewards. Within the emotional rewards, there's actually one kind of reward that oftentimes is more powerful than anything else and that is relieving tension. So if I can take tension away from you, that feels so good. And when I go to a kid, exactly what you just described, when I go to A kid. And I say, I. I'm going to protect you, even if you don't like the protection. You know that I'm doing this for your benefit. You know that this is something that someday you might. You might appreciate. What I'm doing is I'm creating a sense of safety. I'm removing the tension from their life that all of us feel, including kids. And when I remove that tension, I'm giving them a reward that feels incredibly powerful and incredibly rewarding to them.
- [20:06]
A
Now, just a quick clarification. I don't think you're talking about, but just to clarify for anyone listening. So that means when my kid's sad, my job is to make them happy?
- [20:14]
B
No, not at all. Right. Because sadness isn't tension. Right? Sadness is actually an emotion, and sometimes it can be a positive emotion. We all know those times that you. When you were a kid and you broke up with someone and it hurt, but it also, like, felt like you were really alive and you're growing up. Tension is very, very unique to tension. And what it means is something that is causing me some level of anxiety, some level of discomfort that if. That I can see no positive aspect to. Right.
- [20:48]
A
So.
- [20:48]
B
So think about when. When you're. When you're thinking about a conversation you want to have, and it's a tough conversation, you want to tell your sister about something or you want to tell your spouse about something, and you're thinking, like, I don't want to have this conversation. In that moment, there is a lot of emotions. One of them is, like, concern, and one of them is love, and one of them is. And there's also a little bit of tension, like, I just don't want to have this conversation. If you remove that tension, it does not change any of the other emotions. You're still going to go into that conversation saying, I want. I want this person to know I love them, and I'm worried how they're going to react. And. But taking the tension away almost always makes it easier and better for you. And we've all felt this. Right?
- [21:29]
A
I have a crazy question for you. I don't know if you've considered it, because what you're talking about seems adjacent to something I talk to parents about a lot because I don't want. I want every parent to listen. Listening. No. What I stand for, what good inside stands for, is we help kids cope with emotions, not run away or become fragile around them, which is unique. Fortunately, where I do think so many things in the parenting world have overcorrected too I have to take away their distress. My kid's not invited to a party. I create a better party for them. My kid is worried they're not gonna be with their best friend in class. So I call the school and demand it. Even though the best thing would be that your kid is not with that friend. And they learn, even after a hard time, that they can cope. Right. But one of the things I think about, Charles, is we can't often remove the hard, but we can remove the alone. And when you sit with your kid in their emotion, it's not to change the emotion. It's actually to change the alone. And I'm curious, when you talk about tension, I'm nervous about talking to my sister and I'm not gonna change my nervousness. I'm not gonna change my sadness. But when you talk about the tension, Cause I picture someone saying to me, becky, you're right, it's gonna be a hard conversation. There's no way around that. But you can do it. You're gonna feel better after. I feel like in the removing the tension, they're kind of removing the aloneness I was feeling. And I don't know if that's in line with anything you're saying.
- [22:46]
B
Yeah, no, it is. It's oftentimes aloneness and uncertainty. Like when we talk about tension. The reason why tension isn't sadness, it's tension. Isn't that feeling you get when you do, when you don't get invited to the party. That's not tension. What tension is is the uncertainty whether you're going to get invited to that party or that uncertainty whether did they not invite me because they don't like me or did they not invite me because I smell bad? Right. And. And by the way, if there's two other people who didn't get invited, and I like them a lot now, suddenly I'm not alone in that I've actually resolved to the uncertainty and resolved that tension as a result. Doesn't mean that I'm happy with it. Doesn't mean that I'm not going to get that post traumatic growth that comes from having hard experiences as a kid. But it does mean that I understand what lesson I'm supposed to learn from this and that I feel like I have learned it particularly in the company of others.
- [23:36]
A
Yes. So beautiful. Kids. Sports aren't what they used to be. One practice, one game, done. Now it's multiple teams, constant practice at all hours, and travel tournaments. Honestly, it's a lot between practices, carpools, and the endless shuffle of cleats and water bottles. It can feel like the toughest opponent is your own schedule. That's where Skylight Calendar comes in. It's a beautiful wi fi connected digital display that brings your entire family schedule into one clear, colorful place. So everyone knows who's going where, when, and with what. Picture this. It's 9pm Your kid says, oh, I need my uniform for tomorrow's game. Sound familiar? With Skylight, you already know every practice, every reminder right there. No more last minute chaos. Just calm down. And you can sync it with Google Calendar, Team, Snap, Apple, all of it. And the best part, it actually helps your family feel like a team. Right now, Skylight is offering good inside listeners $30 off their 15 inch calendar. Go to my skylight.com/becky. That's my s k y lig h t.com/becky for $30 off. You have so much expertise. I want, I want to switch. Even though it's all related, we have habits and communication. Okay, I love, I mean, I love your book, but I just love the title of the book, Super Communicators. Like, I just, I'm like, who doesn't want to be a super communicator? Yes. Sign me up. Okay. So I would love to hear what rises to the top when you think about communication. And I think here we're really communicating with other adults, communicating with kids. What are some of the most important things you've learned that really, really make a difference?
- [25:33]
B
Yeah. And there's actually one thing in particular, because communication is just a set of skills. Being a super communicator is just a set of skills that can be practiced and learned by anyone. But the central idea that we have that neuroscience has led us to is that when you're having a discussion with someone, you think you know what that discussion is about. You think you're talking about, you know, how'd that test go today? Or where should we go on vacation next year? Or, or if you're at work, here's the My numbers for next month's. For next month's budget. But actually, if we can look inside your brain, which we can now do as you're having a conversation, what we'll see is that during that discussion, you are having multiple different kinds of conversations that are using different parts of your brain. And in general, they tend to fall into one of three buckets. There are these practical conversations where we're making plans or solving problems together. But then there's also emotional conversations where I tell you what I'm feeling and I Don't want you to solve my feelings. I want you to empathize with me. I want you to tell me that you understand. And then the third bucket is these social conversations about how you and I relate to each other, how I relate to society, the sense of self and identities that are important to me. And what researchers have found is that all three of these kinds of conversations are all equally important. And in a discussion, all three of them will probably happen. But if you and I are not having the same kind of conversation at the same moment, we will not hear each other. Not fully. And most importantly, we will not feel connected to each other. And this has given rise to what's known as the matching principle, which says that successful communication requires having the same kind of conversation at the same moment. And then once we're aligned, once we're in sync, we can move from emotional to practical, and then to social and back to emotional together. And even if we disagree with each other, we're going to feel connected. We'll really hear each other. That's the most important idea.
- [27:26]
A
It's almost like you're saying, I'm making this up. There's more language. I have English, I have Spanish, and I have Mandarin. If you're talking Mandarin to Spanish, like, that's not great. It's not gonna work. No language is superior, but you've got to be talking the same language.
- [27:38]
B
That's exactly right. And. And it's because those different conversations, they use different parts of our brains. And if our brains aren't kind of becoming. It's known as neural entrainment. If our brains aren't becoming more and more similar during a conversation, it's very hard for us to feel like we're connecting.
- [27:54]
A
So let me ask you this. I'm going to go over a couple common things, and you're going to break it down from your super communicator lens. Let's just start. Before we get to kids, let's talk about a married partnered couple with kids. Classic argument. Okay. You said you'd be home to do bath time. Hey, I was at work. Someone has to make money around here. You expect me to do everything? You don't do anything around here. Oh, do anything? Are you sitting around doing taxes? Okay, just gonna pause. Break that down for me.
- [28:22]
B
I love this conversation, because here's exactly what's happening. And I think as soon as I say it, everyone will recognize this as in their own lives. When I'm gonna. Let's say it's the wife who's saying, you were supposed to come home and do bath time. And it's the husband who's at work. What the wife is saying is, I want to have an emotional conversation. I'm upset, right? I'm upset and I'm angry and I probably feel a little bit devalued. I need you to hear that I am upset. And what the husband responds with is a practical conversation. I was at work. I had work to do. Like, like, this isn't. This isn't. This isn't something that I chose to do. This is something that's necessary. And then she responds by saying, you know, like. Like you don't do anything around here. Again, I feel like you're not recognizing my value. I feel hurt that you're not recognizing me. I feel this is an emotional conversation. And he responds by saying, well, I don't see you doing the taxes. Another practical response, right? Like, I don't. It doesn' how you feel because, like, the tax has got to get done. These two people are having completely different conversations, and as a result, they're making each other angrier and crazier. Now imagine for a minute that you come home and someone says, you were supposed to do bath time tonight. And, like, you weren't here. And you say, you know what? Look, there's a good reason I wasn't here. But before I go into that, I just. I hear that you are frustrated, and you're completely right to be frustrated. I totally understand. Like, it is. This is completely legitimate. If I was in your shoes, I would also be frustrated. I'm frustrated myself because I was looking forward to bath time. And what's really important to me is that we both feel valued in this relationship. Now let me tell you why I wasn't here. It's because we had this meeting at work that I couldn't miss. In other words, I'm going to acknowledge, I'm going to respond, I'm going to match this emotional conversation you're having, and I'm going to ask you for permission to move to a practical conversation together. Right. Can I tell you why I wasn't here? There's a practical reason for that and what I love.
- [30:19]
A
It changes everything. One of the things I think about is, and I never thought about it with communication, but it applies. So. And I'm a very visual learner, I guess. But let's say these people are on different planets, and one partner's on emotional need planet, the other person's on practical planet. And I think what we do is we're like, come to my planet. Come to my planet. Come to my planet. And everyone's just more entrenched in their planet. But when the first person moves in your situation, it was the partner saying, okay, hold on. This is actually an emotional thing my partner probably needs. Whoa. You felt really alone in bath time again. And, like, the fact that I didn't tell you I was staying home, staying at work late, probably felt really bad. I picture Charles like, that person leaves their practical planet and they have a bridge there because they walked over there. But also, what's interesting is now that I'm, like, lingering as a partner in the emotional world, we have a connection. But because I form that bridge, it's more possible for us both to walk back to the practical globe.
- [31:19]
B
That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And exactly what you're saying is we know this from a neuroscientific perspective when we look at how people think. I mentioned this thing, neural entrainment, the goal of communication is actually for a simultaneity in neural activity. And exactly as you put. If I make a bridge to you, and I try and show that I want to think like you're thinking, you become so much more likely to follow that bridge back to my planet and say, thank you for doing that. Now I'm going to come visit. How you think we're going to become a line.
- [31:54]
A
Okay, I'm going to give you another one.
- [31:56]
B
Okay. I love it.
- [31:57]
A
Okay, so I just took my kids. It's a holiday break. You know, I'm trying to figure out what to do and some time off. So I take them out to breakfast. I take them ice skating. We stop on the way home for ice cream. I'm like, I cannot even believe how much money I just spent on these things. But I'm trying. Okay? We get home, and my kid says, can I watch tv? And I say, some version of, no, sweetie, we're gonna have some downtime. You're the worst mom in the world. We never do anything fun in this family. Okay, Parents is back. We never do anything fun in this family. You should have seen what was like when I was growing up. I spent my vacation sitting on a floor playing with a stick. Okay. Okay.
- [32:39]
B
And do you know how much I just spent on youtub?
- [32:40]
A
You literally.
- [32:42]
B
Literally.
- [32:42]
A
Okay, so break this down.
- [32:44]
B
The kid is coming home, and the parents saying something practical like, look like your grandmother's here, and we haven't seen her all day. I. I want you to go spend a little bit of time with her before we watch tv. Or I want you to spend some time with yourself and like, do some reading, because that's important. And the kids responding by saying, I feel angry and I feel like I don't have agency. And the parent, instead of saying, I hear you. They're saying, you know what? You don't even deserve agency. When I was a kid, I didn't have any agency. You've got so much more agency than.
- [33:16]
A
Well, can I. I wanna jump in for a second because, Charles, you did something. I mean it. So sophisticated. But I wanna break it down. Cause the kids didn't. I agree with you. Because by the way, forget kids. We all do this in our own lives. Our kids said, you're the worst mom. There's nothing fun to do. But what you did so quickly. And I just wanna make sure people hear this. You're so aware and so right. Developmentally, that's not really what a kid's saying. Don't get me wrong, those are the words. But what a kid is probably really feeling internally, but doesn't have the skills or maturity to actually say, but they are trying to say is, I have a period of pause. I'm not sure what to do with that. I don't like that I'm someone who doesn't get to choose how I spend my time. I don't like feeling done to right now. I think a lot of us, if we're honest or like, am I always able to sophisticatedly say that to someone? Hold on a sec. Right. We also say things in a much more escalated hyperbolic way. But I think what you did was. I just want you to break it down further. Cause you, you translated something that your kids said into what's really happening.
- [34:24]
B
I think that's exactly right. And I think it's a really astute observation, is that the words coming out of their mouth often don't tell us what they're really saying. It's instead looking at the whole package and seeing and remembering. So the question is, what's the solution for this? Well, this is actually the second skill that super communicators have, which is when our kid tells us, I feel angry and I feel like I don't have any agency. And I feel like what we need to do at that moment is we need to listen to what they're saying. And then we need to show them that we have listened to what they're saying. We have to prove that we're listening. There's actually a technique that they teach at like business in business schools and law schools called looping for understanding for this, this. And they say, look, if you're in a really, if you're in a high conflict conversation, you should loop for understanding, which means I'm going to start by asking you a question, right? If you're, if you're feeling furious, get curious. I'm going to ask you a question, and hopefully it's going to be something that's known as a deep question that asks you about your values or your beliefs, your experiences, and we can talk more about what those are. But I'm just. Step one is I'm going to ask you questions. I'm going to say to the kid, look, I see that you're really upset right now. Tell me a little bit about why you're feeling upset. Like, what are you feeling? I'm going to listen to what they say, and then step two is I'm going to repeat back in my own words what I heard them say. It sounds to me like what you're saying is you really want to watch TV and you're tired and you feel frustrated because you felt like last yesterday I didn't let you watch TV and today I'm not letting you watch TV again. And that makes you. That makes you feel like I don't value you enough. That's step two. I repeat it back in my own words. What I heard you say step three, and most of us do step one or step two kind of intuitively. It's step three that I always forget. Step three is ask if you got it right. Did I hear you correctly? Did I hear what you said? Because in that moment, when I ask you if I got it right, what I'm really asking is for your permission to acknowledge that I was listening. And if you acknowledge that I was listening to you, you become much more likely to listen to me in return.
- [36:28]
A
Bridge. That's the bridge.
- [36:29]
B
That's the bridge. That's the bridge. And so I think in that situation with those kids, when the, when the mom says, what? You've got it so good. I used to sit on the floor. I didn't have anything to do. I just spent so much money on you. If the mom takes just a break, if you're feeling furious, get curious and says, honey, I want to understand more. Tell me what you're feeling right now. Use your words to tell me what you feel, and I'm going to prove to you that I'm paying attention and I'm going to show you that I'm listening. That kid is going to be willing to listen in return. When you say I, I want to let you watch tv, but not right now because I feel like we all need to calm down and you want to spend some time with your grandmother, that, that takes all of the, again, the tension out of the conversation. It's the same conversation. We're still doing the same thing. We, our kids still might think we're the worst parent on earth and that we don't know what we're doing, but we've taken the tension out of the conversation and we feel like we're connected to each other, even if we disagree.
- [37:23]
A
There's a couple things I wanna add on that just. That's so helpful what you just said. Number one, this is true for kids and adults. We all escalate the expression of our communication when we don't feel believed at the core, all of us. It's like that's why going back to the couples, suddenly I'm saying to my husband, you don't help with anything. I don't actually think that's true. I don't even realize I'm saying that. But it's gonna get more escalated. Cause at the core I need him to say, I didn't come home at 5:30 and I said I would. And that probably felt bad. Right? And so when we don't feel believed, we all escalate. So I just wanna take this out of just the kid realm. Like sometimes it's helpful, I find with my kid to think. In what situation would I be doing something very similar to my kid? Right. Oh, and when you think about it that way, when would I say something extreme? I feel desperate, I feel overwhelmed, I'm exhausted. I don't feel believed in the first place. Right? That's Number one. Number two, I hear parents thinking and I get this. Dr. Becky Charles. This is like a lot of time. This is a lot of work, you know, and it's not. I don't wanna. I'm not gonna pretend there's some quick fix to parenting and leadership. Like that's just the hardest job in the world. But I don't want us to forget how much time we spend arguing about things where we're not really communicating. Like that argument with my kid will take me three minutes. I will then have to recover. I will go to bed, literally not falling asleep for half an hour. Pardon my language. Cause I feel like shit about myself and I feel so disconnected. That's a lot of time. I just don't account for it as time because it's just part of my daily rhythm. And so A small shift, which again, some kids aren't gonna tell you how they feel. But I wanna give parents listening, even being able to say to yourself, maybe there's more to the story under the words, maybe this is escalated again. I always come back to maybe I have a good kid having a hard time right now, and I don't even know why, but if I just see my kid as a good kid having a hard time versus a bad kid doing bad spoiled things, the whole thing becomes a little. I can reduce some of the tension, I think, in that moment.
- [39:39]
B
That's exactly right. I think that's really, really wise. And I think one of the things that's happening there is, you know, to bring it back to habits, is that when we stop and we say, this is a good kid having a bad moment, what we're engaging there is a habit that helps us think more deeply. And it turns out that many of the most valuable habits are what are known as cognitive routines. And their whole goal is to get us to think more deeply, to take just half a second to think a little bit more. Particularly when thinking is hard, particularly when we're angry or when we feel panicked or we feel stressed or our kid just yelled at us and we. We feel like they're so ungrateful. These little habits that we can develop that get us that it's a good kid having a bad moment. It just slows us down just enough to remember who we actually are and what we actually want to do.
- [40:27]
A
So good. Okay, ready for rapid fire. Do you have to stretch?
- [40:30]
B
I love it. I love it.
- [40:31]
A
Okay, here we go. First question. One misconception people have about what it means to be a good communicator.
- [40:41]
B
That some people are born great communicators and some people aren't. And it turns out that is not true at all. It doesn't matter if you're an introvert, an extrovert. It doesn't matter matter if you're college educated or not college educated. The best communicators are simply people who think a little bit more about communication, who think to themselves, how could I have made that better? That's it.
- [41:01]
A
Can I just want to double down on that because it's so interesting. I think parents have that, especially moms maternal instinct. I'm born knowing how to do this. Why can't this be a skill like anything else we do? Right? So same thing with communication.
- [41:16]
B
And if it was one of our kids and, and we told them to use, you know, good table manners and then the next meal they didn't use good table manners. We wouldn't say, oh, you're a broken kid, because clearly you should have been born knowing how to do table manners. No, we say, actually, I got to tell you this, like 10 or 12 or 15 or 1,000 times before it actually takes root. So why not give that same grace to ourselves?
- [41:36]
A
And you have to learn. That's right. And I think just, I love this idea that with parenting, with communication, thinking about it as a skill takes the shame out of learning. I love that. Okay, next one. What is a habit you're actively working on as a parent?
- [41:51]
B
Oh, so my, my 17 year old is applying to college and he's about to leave out into the world, right? He's going to be an adult. And it is. I have such a strong instinct to like, be his dad and solve his problems and be like, when he brings something up to be like, you know, what you want to do is. Or. Or here's in. And I want my relationship, as he becomes more and more of an adult, to be healthier and healthier. And the only way I can do that is by treating him more and more like an equal and a peer rather than a pupil. Right? And so I'm constantly trying to remind myself that when he tells me something, I should sow curiosity about it rather than try and help him solve it so hard.
- [42:35]
A
The kind of, I always say, the things we need in our back pocket for any time a kid comes to us is if the first thing you say to them is just, I'm so glad you're talking to me about this. Tell me more. Like, that's it. But Charles, I have to tell you, I talk a good game too, in a podcast. And so it's like, you know, let's just like, be real about how play it. But that sounds good. But let's both. We're gonna try that a little more often.
- [42:57]
B
I love.
- [42:58]
A
Super communicators tend to do what early in a challenging, heated conversation, they ask more questions.
- [43:08]
B
And what we know is that again, we're all super communicators at one time or another. But some people are consistent super communicators. And consistent super communicators ask 10 to 20 times more questions than the average person. And some of those questions are just invitations, right? It's like, oh, what'd you think about that? Or, oh, did you see that movie? What'd you think? But some of the questions, as I mentioned before, are these things that are known as deep questions. And a deep question is something that Asks me about my values or my beliefs or my experiences. And that can sound intimidating, but it's as simple as if you meet someone who's a doctor, instead of saying, oh, what medical school did you go to? Asking them, oh, what made you decide to go to medical school? Right. That second question invites them to tell me who they are. Super communicators ask those questions.
- [43:50]
A
Can I tell you something about how I think of his questions? And you're going to hear. It's another visual. I think about questions as roads. You ask someone to walk down with you, and it's interesting. Think about, what medical school did you go to? It's a very short road.
- [44:04]
B
Yeah.
- [44:05]
A
I don't know. I went to school X. Okay. It's not. I don't even. It'd be generous to call it a road. What's lighting you up these days? What led you to discover medicine? Like, you can take a kind of long walk on that road, which means, like, you're gonna get to know someone, which I think a lot about the questions we ask to our kids. Right? Like, what grade did you get? It kind of tells them what road you want to walk down versus, like, tell me about recess. What'd you do? And again, there's no better or worse. And I don't want a parent to think I'm not supposed to talk about grades. Bad road. No, there's no rigidity. But if you think about a question as a road where you're forming a relationship with someone, it gives a different shape to a question.
- [44:41]
B
I love that. I love that. And I think we all know it's such a. It's such a powerful metaphor to think about this, because you're exactly right. I think we all know at the beginning of a road whether it's short or long, right? If I ask you, what grade did you get? That road is literally like two words long or three. Maybe I got a C. But if the question is, what do you feel like was the hardest and easiest part of that test? And what did you like about it? That road is, like, insanely long. That's 10,000 words long.
- [45:10]
A
And it's interesting if you think about the question. Now we're really going off. Charles, you and I have to get our own podcast together. Because if you think about the question as the road, and so much of what is your real goal? Is it extracting information, or is a question just a way to get to know someone? Think about how well you can get to know someone on a longer, more meandering road. You can't get to know someone that well on a. Like, where did you. Where, you know, where were you born? Like, unless it's a road to, like, oh, what was that? Like, tell me about what sticks out. Right. Whatever it is, there's a lot of time to get to know someone when you're walking down certain roads versus others.
- [45:40]
B
I absolutely agree. I love that.
- [45:42]
A
Anything that you've noticed, parents think. Think is good communication with kids. That tends to backfire.
- [45:49]
B
I think oftentimes we feel like delivering knowledge to a kid is the thing that. That they're looking for. But actually what they need to do is they need to discover that knowledge on their own, and we can support them in that. Right. That's why. That's why I think asking kids questions, even if you know the answer to the question, oh, you know, what do you. What do you think you could have done differently to do better on that test? I know what the answer is. You could have studied more. Right. But we all know how powerful it is that oftentimes. And this isn't just kids, all of us. All of us. There's a difference between information and knowledge. And oftentimes the way that we turn information into knowledge is by cognating on it, is by chewing it up, is by changing it. And the more that we ask these questions that help kids take a piece of information and make it into a lesson, a piece of knowledge that they've learned, that's the thing that they're gonna remember.
- [46:42]
A
Again, I'm gonna double down on this because I think a lot, and I think the whole good insight approach is about teaching kids how to think, not what to think. You shortchange. It's a very short road. What to think. You could study next time, but kids only learn from the literal experience in their body. So I'm just gonna model something different around your example. And I think the word wonder puts us into this mindset. And I do think I don't talk enough about the wonder face. So I'm just gonna model it here. I wonder what you could have done. And here's my wonder face. Could you have done? But I really mean it. I actually do this with my kids a lot. Like, I'll say something, and these are some of our best moments. Like, what did I say to them recently? Oh, what does it mean to be close as a family? Like, what do you think that means? And I kind of have this wandering phase. And the reason that makes such a big difference in terms of how to think is now my kid has to search, they have to wonder. You don't learn by someone inserting knowledge into you. Really not in a way that translates over the years. Or else we all would have been perfect teenagers. Let's be honest, okay?
- [47:47]
B
You learn and you still remember how to do calculus.
- [47:49]
A
Exactly. Who remembers? Sine cosine. It means nothing to me. Right. So like, in my body, I have to go through a searching. That is the kind of tunnel I need to go through. And so wondering. And I do think there's something. Cause we can ask questions to a kids and they call our bullshit. We're like, I wonder what you could have done. My kid's like, that is an accusation with a question mark. Okay, exactly, exactly. So I think this idea of really wondering and. And I do. Everyone's gotta find their wonder face that feels authentic to them because it's a communication to your kid that actually there's permission to think and not have to come up with the right answer.
- [48:28]
B
That's exactly. And what I love. I absolutely agree. And. And not only that, but you're showing them that you're interested in their answer.
- [48:35]
A
Right.
- [48:36]
B
Like. Like, I wonder. I wonder if you, like, wonder what you could have done differently. If it's a real question, you're putting them in a position of power. You're giving them agency to say, hey, dad, don't worry about it. Here's how I'm going to solve it for you next time. Right? It feels wonderful.
- [48:50]
A
All right, my last question. You're going to zoom out. You think about your kids, I don't know, 10, 20, 40 years ago. When someone goes, oh, what was your dad like? And they just have one sentence, they go, oh, my dad, he was or he is. How do you want them to finish that?
- [49:06]
B
Oh, that's such a good question. So my dad passed away in 2018, and I've actually been thinking about him lately, like, how much I miss being able to call him and sort of like, ask him, like, how should I handle this or that. And I think if somebody asked me that about my dad, I would say, like, he always thought I was the greatest and he supported me so much. And like, he made me feel so smart and he made me feel so capable, and he made me feel so clever. That's what I hope my kids say about me. And what's interesting about it is that's not me saying, oh, my dad was so smart and my dad was so clever, and my dad had so much agency, even though he did. Right. He had all those attributes. But the thing that Like I remember if you were to ask me about him, is how he made me feel. And I hope that someday my kids say my dad made me feel like the most important person on earth who could do anything. And it's actually true. I mean, I think they can do anything and hopefully they know that.
- [50:07]
A
I mean, your dad sounds like such a lighthouse in terms of how he directed light back in. That's so beautiful.
- [50:13]
B
And it was. I mean, he was a dad, right? Like, we started a company together and it was hard and there was a lot of ups and downs, but. But throughout it all, I knew that he always. He wanted me to succeed and he thought I could succeed. And that's the most valuable thing that you can give a kid.
- [50:32]
A
That is just so beautiful. Thank you. Thank you for your work. Thank you for the power of habit, for super communicators, for all the other ways you show up and make science and change so shame free and so possible. You've impacted so many people, me included. And so I'm just so grateful for everything you put out to the world.
- [50:50]
B
Thank you for having me on and thank you for making such a great show. I love listening to this show and so it's such a pleasure to get a chance to spend some time with you more soon.
- [51:00]
A
There were so many takeaways from that episode, but I want to tell you the one thing that I'm playing over in my head over and over so much, I wrote it down. When Charles said it, he was talking about how hard it is for people to begin or stick with habits. And he said this. It's just that people don't understand how habits work. I can't even tell you what happened in my body when he said that. It was so relieving. I hope you heard it that way. Wait. If I'm stuck in any area of my life, the morning routine or habit, I want my kids having meltdowns and I don't understand them. My kid's not sleeping at night. Me and my partner are arguing. I want to know if you can take this mindset around. Maybe there's just a dynamic here that's keeping me stuck that I don't understand because then we can take the next step. Is there anyone I know who could help me understand this? Kind of like, could anything help me unblock my confusion and get to clarity? I love how possible and hopeful and empowering that is. So that's what I'll be thinking about when I'm really stuck. Maybe it's not willpower. Maybe it's not that something's wrong with me or my kid. Maybe it's just as simple as there's something I don't understand. There's a lot of people in this world who could help me understand. I love that. Let's end the way we always do. Place your feet on the ground and a hand on your heart. And let's remind ourselves even as we struggle on the outside, we remain Good Inside. I can't wait to see you again soon. Do you remember those first few weeks of parenthood? Beautiful, overwhelming, exhausting, confusing all at once. I remember all those feelings clustering together for me. And I know having support during that time made such a difference. That's why for five days this season, we're partnering with welcome Baby, a non profit that provides essential supplies to new parents in need. From December 18 through December 22, 10% of every new Good Inside membership will help fund welcome Baby packages filled with the basics a mother and newborn need for their first four weeks. So when you join Good Inside, you're getting the support you need and giving it to another parent who needs it too. Learn more@goodinside.com.