1163: Dr. Becky Kennedy | Parenting with Connection over Correction

Summary

Detailed Summary of "The Jordan Harbinger Show" Episode 1163: Dr. Becky Kennedy | Parenting with Connection over Correction

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Introduction

Jordan Harbinger opens the episode by introducing Dr. Becky Kennedy, a renowned parenting expert, therapist, and author of "Good Inside." He highlights that the conversation will delve into effective parenting strategies that focus on building resilience, setting boundaries, and understanding human behavior in children. This episode aims to provide valuable insights not only for parents but also for anyone interested in child development and human behavior.

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1. Understanding Parental Boundaries

Dr. Becky Kennedy emphasizes the critical role of boundaries in parenting. She clarifies that boundaries are not about imposing threats or punishments but about asserting parental authority to ensure the safety and well-being of children.

"Boundaries are what we tell our kids we will do. And they require a kid to do nothing." ([06:31])

Dr. Kennedy explains that effective boundaries involve clear actions from the parent rather than contingent threats. For example, rather than saying, “If you don’t stop jumping, I’ll take away your dessert,” a boundary-focused approach would be, “If you’re still jumping after I arrive, I will put you on the ground to keep you safe” ([07:06]).

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2. Validating Children's Emotions

A significant aspect of Dr. Kennedy's approach is validating children's emotional experiences. She distinguishes validation from agreement, underscoring that acknowledging a child's feelings does not mean the parent endorses the behavior but rather understands and respects the child's emotional state.

"Validating their emotional experience generally comes up in the face of our boundary and is how we stay connected to our kid." ([08:30])

This approach helps children develop emotion regulation skills, enabling them to handle their feelings constructively rather than projecting frustration outwardly.

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3. Building Resilience and Emotion Regulation

Dr. Kennedy discusses the importance of resilience in children, highlighting that resilience is cultivated through experiencing and managing a range of emotions. She asserts that children are born with intense feelings but lack the skills to manage them, which parents can help develop through consistent boundary-setting and emotional validation.

"Anything worthwhile takes time... How long it takes things to click are also completely different." ([03:56])

By pairing boundaries with validation, children learn to navigate their emotions effectively, leading to resilient and emotionally intelligent adults.

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4. Discipline Without Resentment

The conversation shifts to discipline strategies that avoid fostering resentment. Dr. Kennedy advocates for a framework where discipline is about guiding rather than punishing, ensuring that children understand the reasons behind rules and boundaries.

"Our job as a parent, my number one job, is to keep you safe." ([10:03])

She critiques traditional punishment methods, suggesting that such approaches often undermine parental authority and fail to teach meaningful lessons. Instead, she recommends clear, consistent actions that prioritize the child’s safety and learning.

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5. Confidence vs. Self-Esteem

Dr. Kennedy makes a crucial distinction between confidence and self-esteem. She defines confidence as self-trust—the belief in one's ability to handle challenges independently—while self-esteem relates to feeling good about oneself.

"Confidence is self-trust and I think they're very different." ([64:50])

By fostering an environment where children are encouraged to solve problems and tolerate frustration, parents can help build genuine confidence, enabling children to trust in their abilities even when they fail or face setbacks.

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6. The "Do Nothing" Strategy

A pivotal strategy discussed is "doing nothing," which involves parents refraining from immediate corrective actions during a child's tantrum or emotional outburst. Instead, parents focus on regulating their own emotions while allowing the child to process their feelings independently.

"Doing nothing is a strategy I am choosing. It is mindful restraint." ([45:07])

This approach prevents parents from inadvertently stooping to the child's level and teaches children to manage their emotions without relying on parental intervention.

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7. Involving Fathers in Parenting

Dr. Kennedy highlights the evolving role of fathers in modern parenting. She encourages fathers to engage actively and emotionally with their children, breaking away from traditional stereotypes and fostering stronger familial bonds.

"Dads these days really want to be involved... I have a deep passion to connect with more dads." ([78:34])

By participating in parenting education and embracing their roles as emotional supports, fathers can significantly contribute to their children's resilience and emotional health.

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8. Sharing Scary Experiences with Children

Addressing how to communicate scary or traumatic experiences with children, Dr. Kennedy advises honesty balanced with age-appropriate explanations. She emphasizes that children are more frightened by uncertainty and lack of information than by the information itself.

"Information doesn't scare kids. Noticing changes and scary things in their environment and not understanding those things terrifies kids." ([85:33])

Parents should provide coherent narratives that help children make sense of frightening events, thereby reducing anxiety and building trust.

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9. Overcoming Parenting Challenges

Throughout the conversation, Dr. Kennedy and Jordan Harbinger address various parenting challenges, such as handling a child's anger, fostering emotional intelligence, and balancing discipline with affection. They share practical examples and strategies to navigate these complexities effectively.

"The best feeling... is the feeling you get when you think you can't do something and then you watch yourself make progress." ([73:25])

These insights underline the importance of patience, consistency, and intentional emotional support in parenting.

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Conclusion

The episode concludes with Dr. Becky Kennedy reinforcing the importance of setting boundaries, validating emotions, and building resilience in children. She urges parents to view their role as leaders and coaches, guiding their children through emotional challenges to foster independent and emotionally intelligent adults.

"We have to help our kids... because how much we have access to true education and resources impacts their overall mental health as they get older." ([82:36])

Dr. Kennedy expresses optimism that informed and intentional parenting can lead to a generation of resilient and capable individuals, contributing positively to society.

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Notable Quotes

• "Boundaries are what we tell our kids we will do. And they require a kid to do nothing." — Dr. Becky Kennedy ([06:31])

• "Confidence is self-trust and I think they're very different." — Dr. Becky Kennedy ([64:50])

• "Doing nothing is a strategy I am choosing. It is mindful restraint." — Dr. Becky Kennedy ([45:07])

• "Information doesn't scare kids. Noticing changes and scary things in their environment and not understanding those things terrifies kids." — Dr. Becky Kennedy ([85:33])

• "We have to help our kids... because how much we have access to true education and resources impacts their overall mental health as they get older." — Dr. Becky Kennedy ([82:36])

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Final Thoughts

This episode offers a comprehensive exploration of effective parenting techniques centered around connection rather than correction. Dr. Becky Kennedy provides actionable advice grounded in psychological principles, making it a valuable resource for parents aiming to nurture resilient and emotionally intelligent children. By emphasizing boundaries, emotional validation, and resilience-building, the conversation equips listeners with the tools needed to foster healthy parent-child relationships and support their children's development into capable adults.

Transcript

[Jordan Harbinger]

Here at the Zebra, research shows the average person would rather endure a root canal than search for auto and home insurance. Just try to relax. Or be trapped in a car for eight hours with toddlers on a sugar high. Or remove a nest of irate hornets. That's why the Zebra searches for you. Comparing over 100 insurance companies to find savings no one else can Compare. [e-mail] we do the searching, you do the saving. I think I'll wait inside. Coming up next on the Jordan Harbinger.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Show, we hear someone around us, you're just gonna do nothing. We almost have this urge to prove and do all of our parenting in like the next 30 seconds. You're regulating your own emotions as an adult versus vomit it onto my child and it looks like something, but it's actually just stooping to their child level and I am choosing do nothing. It is mindful restraint.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker through long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, performers, even the occasional neuroscientist, war correspondent or astronaut. And if you're new to the show or you want to tell your friends about the show, I suggest our episode starter packs. These are collections of our favorite episodes on topics like persuasion and negotiation, psychology and geopolitics, disinformation, China, North Korea, crime and cults, and more. They'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on this show. Just visit jordanharbinger.com start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started Today on the show, the one and only Dr. Becky Kennedy, parenting expert and therapist, author and creator of Good Inside the Book and the App. Yes, we discuss parenting, but this episode is great not only for parents, but for anybody who is interested in children human behavior. This is a fun, relaxed conversation diving into resilience, boundaries, common parenting mistakes we what we should and should not share with kids, and a whole lot more. This episode will definitely help you become a better parent, of course, but it'll also give you insight into human nature in general and I think that alone is worth a listen. Here we go with Dr. Becky Kennedy.

[Unnamed Parent]

If you came to my house, you would not be convinced that the adults ruled the world.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I said, am I outing myself too early in the show here?

[Unnamed Parent]

I don't know, Jordan.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Multiple. That's what I'm saying. Multiple things can be true. I would not judge you by any interaction I watch with your child. And there are moments where our kids take over our homes for all of us.

[Unnamed Parent]

It's funny, I'm guessing every parent has this experience. My wife and I, before kids, we go to a restaurant, A kid would be screaming and crying and throwing stuff, and we would be like, get your kid under control.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And then once we had kids, we were like, oh, every kid does this probably. Except for the ones that don't. And those parents will never understand.

[Unnamed Parent]

A friend of my wife's, she wrote a manuscript of a parenting book because.

[Jordan Harbinger]

She had this really well behaved kid and it was incredible. Early reader, early music, super well behaved, polite, early talker, and everyone was blown away.

[Unnamed Parent]

So she writes this manuscript. She's like, I have the tricks.

[Jordan Harbinger]

She has a second kid, she takes.

[Unnamed Parent]

The manuscript and spikes it in the trash can because none of it actually worked. It was just a lucky kid, just got born with all the right stuff. Early on in the confluence of circumstances, she was a good parent, but all those tricks were not applying to even her next kid in the exact same environment. So into the trash it went.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yeah, first of all, no two kids in the same family are alike. But I do believe all kids need the same things, but how they are able to receive them are completely different. And what their kind of developmental arcs look like and how long it takes things to click are also completely different. For sure.

[Unnamed Parent]

I'm just sort of warning you, slash also the listener. Because since I'm a parent of two young kids, I read your book probably a year ago now or something like that. And I've been since then keeping a notes file with parenting questions. So normally I have a coherent conversation. That's probably not going to happen right here. This is going to be like, okay, my next one is this. My next one is this. And I don't usually roll like that, but I felt the need to prep you so that you don't think that I'm an insane person who can't follow a thread.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

I love rapid fire. And actually, I bet there's going to be a common thread like there almost always is, to our seemingly unrelated parenting struggles. That's a challenge I'll take on.

[Unnamed Parent]

Yeah, I'm ready to hear what that might actually be. So many parents, myself included, struggle with setting boundaries that actually work. And I wonder what's the Biggest mistake parents make when trying to get their kids to listen.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Those are a bunch of questions. So let's take two questions. One is, what's going on with boundaries and are we doing them right? And why aren't they seemingly working and separate but unrelated? Is when I say my kid isn't listening, what might be really going on and then what leads to more cooperation?

[Unnamed Parent]

The parenting thing is you don't get an instruction manual and then you just think you're totally winging it, possibly blowing it. And then maybe your kids grew up to be functional human beings and it wasn't so bad. I don't know.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

By no means is any parent perfect. And there's not one system that works for every kid. But in every other area of our life, we probably invest a good amount in education and don't expect to figure it all out by winging it. And so I think there's a happy medium because I think in like the workplace, if you show up on day one and your boss goes, well, do a good job today. And you're like, okay, I wanna do a good job. But then you realize you don't have a job description. I think anybody would know I can't do a good job if I don't know what my job is. And I actually think most parents, they actually don't have any clarity in what their job is. What is my job when my kid's upset? What is my job in general? And a lot of it actually comes down to boundaries. So to me, parents have two jobs in almost every situation. So there's a wash, rinse, repeat nature to learning this. And those two jobs are setting boundaries and validating your kids emotional experience. And we often think about those two things in opposition. But to me, they really are two sides of an effective parenting equation and both really matter. So let's start with boundaries, because I think boundaries are very poorly misunderstood. And whenever I hear someone say my kids don't respect my boundaries, I actually kind of know that their definition of boundaries is probably off. So here's my definition of boundaries. Boundaries are what we tell our kids we will do. And they require a kid to do nothing.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Okay?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

So in a way, they're in assertion of your very appropriate parental authority. Which is, I don't mean that in a creepy way, but like, truly we are the authority. You are the pilot of the plane. And so boundaries are limits. So boundaries though are within your control. So if you're saying my kid doesn't respect my boundaries, you're saying, I'm giving The power of my intervention to my kid. And we have to help parents reclaim that. So here's a perfect example. And it relates to listening. Because a lot of times when parents say my kids aren't listening, we're just not setting boundaries. So for example, get off the couch. Stop jumping off the couch. These are things we say to our kids all the time. Maybe they're jumping near a glass table.

[Unnamed Parent]

Whatever the reason, I gave up on that and moved the table. But again, whatever.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

So a boundary is not saying, please stop jumping, we don't jump. Or if you don't stop jumping, I will take away your dessert tonight. Because again, a boundary is something I tell my kid I will do as the parent. And it would require my kid to do nothing in all those situations, I'm not communicating what I would do. And the success of the intervention requires my kid to do something, which is just not a bet we really want to make. A boundary in that situation would be saying, it looks like it's hard for you to get off the couch. If by the time I get over to you you're not off, I will pick you up and put you on the ground because it's just not safe to jump near that glass table. So this actually always leads to the second part of your job, because we have some fantasy that when we deliver that boundary well, your kid's gonna say, oh, dad, I really needed that. Thank you so much. I really appreciate. They never do that. They always protest, which is what we do as adults. Also, when people set boundaries that we don't like, we get upset. And then you can do the other part of your job, which is validating their emotional experience. Oh, you really wanted to jump on the couch. Oh, you're really upset. You really wish you could make your own decisions. And so the boundary is the limit we set to keep our kids safe. And then validating their emotional experience, that generally comes up in the face of our boundary and is how we stay connected to our kid and actually how we also help them build emotion regulation skills.

[Unnamed Parent]

So when you say validate their emotional reaction to that. So if they're like scream crying that we picked them up off the couch, you say, I know it's hard to stop jumping on the couch. It's a lot of fun, but it's my job to keep you safe. Or something along those lines.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Great. We already kind of talked about what a lot of people struggle with boundaries. One of the things we struggle with validation is we have this false equivalence that validating my kids feelings means. I Agree with those feelings, or I would have those feelings. That actually goes back to multiplicity. I am not upset. My kid is upset. And part of being in any healthy relationship is recognizing that other people feel the way they feel, and then that's okay. Exactly. I pick them up. Oh, you wish you could keep jumping on the couch. You wish is generally a great statement to start any validating phrase because you're speaking to the thing you're not allowing your kid to do that they really wish they could do. You wish you could have ice cream for breakfast. You wish you could stay up later. You wish you could watch another TV show while. And this is the other thing people think when you say that that means I'm letting my kid watch another TV show, or I'm letting them know I'm holding my boundary and I'm validating how they're feeling.

[Unnamed Parent]

So how do you set limits, then, without resorting to threats or punishments? Or are we saying that we might have to do that? Because it sounds like if I have to come pick you up, you're not taking their dessert away. You're actually just saying, if I have to come over there, I'll pick you up. You're not saying. And you get no dessert.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yeah, we have this kind of obsession with punishments and threats. I think it's because it's how we were parenting.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's how we were parented. I find myself doing it and going.

[Unnamed Parent]

This is not effective. It's never worked. It's not going to work this time. But it's the only tool I have in the toolbox.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

But I thank you for being honest because I think, me too. I've said those things. Here's how it usually looks in my house. If I'm not setting a boundary, I'm like, hey, if you don't get off the couch, I'm taking away your dessert tonight. And then my kid probably doesn't get off the couch. And then it's whatever time at night. And then I think most of us, okay, this is what I do. I'll be like, sorbet isn't dessert. Like, berries and whipped cream isn't really dessert. Like, I make something up because I don't actually want to deal with another meltdown. And then we totally undermine our authority. We're just, like, making stuff up. So we're just feel desperate. I think when we say those things.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I'm all, they forgot. They forgot the threat worked. And now he doesn't remember.

[Unnamed Parent]

And then the next day is, last time you said you were going to take away dessert. And you didn't. And I'm like, nope, he didn't forget.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I'm just a sucker who played myself well.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

And if we. Again, if we think about. Cause I really do think what we give parents is leadership training, which is, again, just something. Why wouldn't we need leadership training? This is a harder leadership job than any CEO position. It is. CEOs like to say, sometimes, like, it feels like I'm dealing with toddlers. No, no. In your home, you are literally dealing with toddlers. So, again, I just picture a CEO for someone who's late to work a couple days in a row, saying, if you don't come in time tomorrow, I'm taking away your ability to expense lunch. I'm sorry if I heard that, I'd be like, that's the best you've got. That just doesn't feel like what excellent CEOs say, you know, hey, let's meet. Look, I'm on your team. Something's getting in the way of you being on time. I know you don't need me to lecture you about that. Let's get to the bottom of this. Let's work together. Because getting to work on time is really important. And we both know that, like, you're working with someone, you're being on their team. And if a CEO said that, I don't know anyone who'd say that CEO is really permissive. They'd be like, that CEO is effective. And punishments and threats. I actually think we know they don't really work in the workplace or on the sports field anymore. Just the last place to modernize is parenting.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So is there a golden rule or.

[Unnamed Parent]

Anything for getting kids to respect the.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Boundaries without constant power struggles?

[Unnamed Parent]

Or do we just continually pick them up and put them down off the couch until they're too old to jump on the couch?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

It's such a good question. So there's a couple things that we need to understand. I think about development, and I think there's other things we can just reflect on in terms of why do I listen to people? Because when we say kids don't listen, what we really mean is, my kid isn't cooperating when I ask them to do something I want them to do and they don't want to do. Because again, if you said to your kid, iPad time for two hours, they all quote, listen. So that's not really what we're talking about. So, number one, in terms of just development, and I think this is one of the core things that drives almost all of our Interventions is that kids are born with all the feelings and all this urges and none of the skills to manage feelings or urges. And that gap between a feeling and an urge and a skill, that gap always explains bad behavior in children or adults. Why do I yell at my husband sometimes? I don't know. I was overwhelmed with my own frustration from the day, and that frustration overpowered my skill in my body to manage the frustration. Right. Why do we sometimes speed our urge to speed, even though we know we're in an area where there's cops around, is greater than our ability to manage it. So the thing about that gap and why it's so helpful is then you can look at your kid's bad behavior through the lens of, my kid doesn't have the skills they need to meet the feelings and urges they have. And then it transpires from there, okay, what do I do with my kid who doesn't know how to swim? I think swimming's a beautiful example because we really understand that it takes a while for kids to learn the skill of swimming. And none of us would pay for a lesson where the teacher goes, go to your room and come back when you can swim. If you can't swim next week, no iPad, what's even the theory of why that would work? And at the same time, when you have a good swim lesson, I don't think any of us think the next week our kid is gonna swim successfully. And so I think it takes time. Anything worthwhile takes time. I have a kid who's a little more people pleasing, and I have another kid who has about 0% people pleasing in him. Their arcs look different. If I said to that kid, even if I tried, which I don't even recommend, to make it about guilt, hey, I'm really sad, he'd be like, what? Why would I care? That does not affect me. But those are just strong willed kids and their arc, their skills are different. So that's number one. Number two, I think we have to also understand that our kids over time pair their big feelings and urges with our boundaries. So your kids wanting to jump somewhere dangerous and learning not to jump, that just takes time for any kid. And it also depends on their temperament. Just learning to swim, learning how to manage urges and manage feelings, it takes time. Our kids have a feeling or an urge to jump on the couch or an urge to hit their sibling, and that urge has to actually get paired with our boundary. That's why we say, I won't let you hit. That's why we hopefully notice the Signs our kid is about to hit and pull them to the side, then to interrupt that arc and over time, those things in the moment along with some things that help outside the moment. That's how a kid eventually learns how to essentially regulate emotions and urges. So feelings and urges don't come out in the form of behavior.

[Unnamed Parent]

That's something that my daughter seems to be able to totally control. And my son, who's a little older, is struggling with for sure. It's funny, the other day in the car, he got so mad, and he was, like, making all these threats, and it was over nothing. Of course. He's just tired or something. Speaking of skills, right. He just doesn't have the skill to go, oh, I'm tired and hungry and frustrated. That's what's causing this. He's like, no, it's because she has this plastic thing that I now want and have to have, or it means nobody loves me or whatever the hell's going on right. In his head. In his head.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And then my daughter is three, goes, when I get mad, I can control.

[Unnamed Parent]

And we were like, that's the cutest thing ever. But we didn't want to say that because that was going to make him more angry. So one of those parent looks at each other and we're like, oh, my God, that's so cute. He was in the backseat. Hopefully didn't notice.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But it's very interesting because we see.

[Unnamed Parent]

In him, he's got an engineer brain. He's very good at a lot of different things. So, Jaden, when you're listening to this in 20 years, here's your compliment.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But she.

[Unnamed Parent]

My daughter is really good at the emotional stuff.

[Jordan Harbinger]

She'll see that someone's sad and she's, I'm gonna go give them a strawberry.

[Unnamed Parent]

When he makes somebody sad, he's like, whatever. They deserve to be bitten on the shoulder because they're annoying.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And I'm like, I can follow the.

[Unnamed Parent]

Logic, but that's not gonna get you very far.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It is a skills gap.

[Unnamed Parent]

Like, you can see my daughter develop the skills a little earlier. My son's better at Legos and RC cars for now.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yeah, look, I think actually, you know, what you're saying about your son and daughter is that they're actually. And this can happen a lot in families. It does. And it definitely happens a lot when there's especially two kids in a family, because the binary becomes, I have one kid like this and I have the other kid like this. Right. So there's this way in which it's Adaptive to both be able to gaze in and know what you want and to gaze out and notice what's going on for other people. And most of us as adults find one of those things more natural or either more naturally oriented to kind of gazing in and being like, this is what I want and this is what I want to do. And I'm good at prioritizing my own needs. And other people are more toward the end of the spectrum of I'm gazing out in my environment, I notice how everyone else feels. I might even to some degree feel responsible for. For making them feel better. Neither extreme is great. The balance of both is actually helpful. So often in families. These two things can be extreme in both kids. Where I'd say, we want to help your daughter at times notice, hey, it's not your job to give someone else's strawberry all the time. Other people are allowed to be upset. You can support them or you can do your own thing and find your own Legos. And we want to help your son in that situation. Sometimes come out of his, like, Lego world and notice that there's other kids or there's other things going on. There's something in between both.

[Unnamed Parent]

There's so much to chew on. Especially when I read the book, I felt I was like, I need to highlight the whole thing.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Some parents feel they have to choose.

[Unnamed Parent]

Between being loved and being respected by their kids.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But how do you strike that balance? Because I don't know if I agree with that, but it's very clear that.

[Unnamed Parent]

Some people want to be loved by their kids. They're letting their kids run the show. It manifests in this lack of respect for the parent that is only going to get way worse with age. And I feel like is a disaster waiting to happen.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

And I think, again, this is another one of those false binaries. And I actually think both sides are also very incomplete. Because this idea that I don't really say no to my kids, I just want to keep my kids happy. I can just tell you, for me, I wouldn't define that as like love.

[Unnamed Parent]

It's a selfish thing because they're actually screwing up their kids so that they have an easier drive forward in life. That's my opinion.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Well, to me, the things we really want to work on with our kids are practice. They're not like a moment is this tendency to want to keep our kids happy. And I have this belief that optimizing for happiness in childhood is actually what causes a ton of fragility and anxiety in the childhood.

[Unnamed Parent]

I see. Tell me More about that.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

So resilience. A lot of us want for our kids as they get older, we want them to be really resilient. And I think the reality of life is you never get rid of the whole range of feelings. I don't know one adult who doesn't feel disappointment, who doesn't feel jealous, doesn't feel anger, who at times doesn't feel less than other people. Now the situation's different. Most adults know how to read, so the situation isn't. I'm the only one in my class who doesn't know how to read. The situation is changed, but the feelings are exactly the same. And so what kids learn in childhood when their body is essentially forming their factory settings, their defaults, what range of feelings should I expect to have throughout my life? And even more profound, what is the range of feelings where I feel capable as a human? And the more in childhood, your parents help you avoid hard feelings, fix things for you, step in too much, distract, give you a quick win. We think that makes a kid's life easier. But the message a kid takes from a parent is the feelings that overwhelm me, also overwhelm my parent. Nobody in the world thinks I can feel capable when I'm frustrated. Nobody in the world thinks that it's okay to be slow, kind of on the slower end of developing a skill. Fast forward to adulthood. There's basically one feeling that kid feels capable of having happiness. The range of feelings, instead of wide, like this, that a kid feels capable. Feeling is like this. That's the essence of fragility. If I feel anything but successful, and if I feel anything but ease and comfort, my body has this massive alarm going off. Which makes sense because every time in childhood I felt anything else, there was an alarm because everyone did whatever they could around me to, quote, rescue me, right?

[Unnamed Parent]

So they can't tolerate these feelings in themselves. They're not resilient as a result of that, right? So they face a setback at work. And we see this, people who just fail in life, right, they can't keep a job and they're living with their mom. Your mom's enabling you to do this. And of course, if you talk to the boss, it would be something like, yeah, we asked him to stop showing up whenever he felt like it. And he couldn't manage to do that. And he couldn't treat his teammates well and he couldn't get his work done. And then he just goes back and lives with mom who treats him like mommy's little darling. It's the Same pattern. You see it with adults, it's just gross.

[Jordan Harbinger]

With adults.

[Unnamed Parent]

This is a weird, gross thing. And those people are dysfunctional.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

It usually comes in the best intentions and it's almost counterintuitive. So I'll give a couple examples. And again, one moment with a kid does not make for a pattern. So my examples are meant to be illustrative of, like, if this is a general pattern. So let's say your kid comes home, they're in kindergarten, they're in first grade, whatever it is, they go, I'm the only one in my class who can't read. Now, I think our natural urge as a parent, because it's understandable we don't love seeing our kid upset, they're really upset, is to say something like, that can't be true, or everyone reads at their own pace. But sweetie, you're so good at chess, you're so good at math. And if you think about the visual of this moment, because I think the visual really matters. Picture your kid in a garden, okay? And there's all these benches. And the benches are essentially experiences. So right now they're sitting on the I'm the only one who can't read bench. Really? Jordan, you and I know that is a more general bench. It's really the bench of other people are further along in something than I am, or I feel jealous, or I feel behind again. I actually think that's a bench you're on at various moments in every decade of your life. So my kid is sitting on the bench, and we either want to pull them off the bench and we're like, look at that sunny bench. Or we do something that's also well intentioned but harmful is we say something like, you don't really feel that way. We kind of say, your bench isn't your bench. No, no, no, it's not that big of a deal. That can't be true. And so what happens is our kid is feeling upset, quote, on this bench. And then they learn, my parent is also scared of me being on this bench. So actually what happens in their body is they encode their difficult feeling. And next to our fear of their difficult feeling. It should be no surprise that when our kid doesn't make the soccer team the next year, our kid has that much more of a kind of tantrum reaction because they have learned how to react to that feeling. It has a lot to do with how we respond to the feeling. And so resilience building in that moment and actually confidence and capability building means saying something back to Your kid. Simple. I'm so glad you're talking to me about this. I believe you. Tell me more. Oh, that sounds like a hard day at school. I'm actually just saying this thing that overwhelms you doesn't overwhelm me. And more so, I still like you when you feel this way. I don't have to escape from it. That means. Let's fast forward to someone got a promotion in your analyst class before you did. What do we want for our kid is to figure that out. What happened, what's going on, Let me stick with it. Not to say the next day I quit my job. And so a lot of that, though, it doesn't happen just when you're 22. It happens from all the resilience building blocks that have already been set as a pattern in much earlier days.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I think a lot of people are.

[Unnamed Parent]

Gonna ask, how can parents encourage resilience without being too tough or dismissing emotions?

[Jordan Harbinger]

I think I know what you mean.

[Unnamed Parent]

But I think some people might be like, oh, you're just sort of dismissing their disappointment and getting them to talk about it. But I don't quite see that to be the case.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yeah, I don't think dismissing someone's feelings or minimizing it or distracting, I would say none of that is gonna help them build resilience. Our kids can only learn to tolerate the range of feelings we tolerate in them. That's what resilience comes from, essentially, is every feeling is overwhelming to a kid because, again, kids are born with all the feelings and none of the skills. And the number one way kids build skills to manage feelings is not from a book, it is not from a class. It is not didactic, is they absorb the way we react to them when they're in a hard place. And so our basically, quote, sitting down on the bench with them and basically saying, yeah, tell me more about this, and then what happened? And yes, quote, allowing your kid to talk about it, or they might not want to talk about it, but essentially giving them the message of the things that overwhelm you. Don't overwhelm me. I don't need to run away from them. That is such a big percentage of how kids build resilience.

[Unnamed Parent]

I got to admit, my wife does this for me, and it works. I'll be really upset about something, and I'm like, this might happen and this might happen. And she's like, that might all happen, but it's going to be totally fine. And we've been through tougher stuff before, and I'm like, oh, this is so funny. I would the same thing to my kid if he didn't make the soccer team.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But even as a grown ass man.

[Unnamed Parent]

I'm 45 years old, I start to catastrophize about something. And she's like, yeah, that would be really hard, but we would totally be able to deal with that. And I'm like, I feel a million times better already.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

That's a lot of it. Being able to say to someone, this stinks and you can cope. I believe you and I believe in you. It sounds like that's essentially what your wife says, that would be hard. And you're someone who's always cope with hard things, and that's what would happen again.

[Unnamed Parent]

I've had friends tell me that during hard times, I would buy stock in Jordan Harbinger if you were selling it. And that made me feel really good. I was going through a business issue almost a decade ago now, and the other friends, they offered to lend me large amounts of money. And I was like, oh, I don't need that. But that alone was like, wow, this person was going to give me this amount of money and risk losing it. They must really believe that I can rebuild this. And they were all right. I was the last person to get on board with that, actually.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

That's so beautiful. I think that actually is the essence of what our kids need from us in hard times. Because when our kids are having a hard moment, and again, their hard moments can seem small to us because they didn't lose a lot of money. It's actually just that they didn't get invited to a slumber party. But in their world, that's the same feeling. And so when we're in our low point, someone's ability to believe that we're feeling that way, but also see a more capable version of ourselves than we can access in that moment. What feels better than that combination? Nothing.

[Jordan Harbinger]

No, it's true.

[Unnamed Parent]

I'd love to go back to discipline for a second because I think a lot of people want to know how you discipline a child without that leading to resentment. Because with my own parents, who are great, we have a great relationship. There was a lot of weird theories on this because they were parented by immigrants who just spanked people repeatedly or yelled a lot, and that didn't work and built some resentment that is not good to have in a family, especially if you want healthy kids. I think a lot of people want to know how to discipline a child in a way that doesn't poke a hole in the Fabric of the relationship.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

So I really mean this as a true question when you ask me how to discipline a child. Tell me more what you picture.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What does that mean?

[Unnamed Parent]

Yeah, let me think of an example. What if somebody keeps hitting their sibling? My son, I gave him this little Nerf gun. He actually found the gun, and I let him have it, which was not a great move, but grandpa already said he could have it anyway.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So he's shooting it, and it's like.

[Unnamed Parent]

Shoots these little Nerf darts. And I said, don't aim it at anyone or especially your face or anyone else. And then he was like, great, I'm gonna shoot my little sister in the face, like, first thing. And I was like, okay, you're not responsible enough to have this gun. Took it away for a while, gave it back, and then I gave it back to him weeks later. He played with it fine for a few days, and then he started shooting people with it. And I was like, meh.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So do I just confiscate the gun.

[Unnamed Parent]

And say, like, hey, you're clearly not able to follow the rules with this, or do I go further and be like, you need to suffer some sort of other consequen that's maybe not related? The more I say this out loud, the more this solution seems probably pretty clear.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Part of the work I love doing with parents is sometimes when we're like, well, like, flesh it out. What do you mean and what really matters? Like, we tend to, like, hear a lot of our own solutions. But, okay, there's a couple things here. Number one, again, going back to our job, our role. What is our role? I believe a parent's role is very akin to a coach. Right. What would you do if your kid is not making layups? And do we feel, let's say, even a kid is making layups? My kid is a great basketball player. They make layups, but in this game, they missed every layup. In the next game, they're missing every layup. I just want to know if any of us are thinking, what kind of consequence do I need to give this kid?

[Unnamed Parent]

Oh, yeah, you just train the layup.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

That's right.

[Jordan Harbinger]

The skill.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

It's really interesting. As a parent or coach, you might be frustrated to be like, what the heck? I know this kid can make a simple layup. There is nobody even guarding them, and they are missing layups. They're not even putting them up against the backboard. We might be frustrated, but if we heard ourselves or a coach say, look, I am going to have to take away your TV Time. Why would that help now? The next time they take a layup, just going to feel like a shitty basketball player, they're probably going to be less likely to make the layup. It's just that we've been doing this to kids for so long that we call it discipline, but it actually makes no sense. This is the biggest thing we challenge at good Inside. It doesn't make sense. It's not how we even treat professional athletes anymore. We've modernized there. It's just kids are the last area to modernize because they're not a group of people who are able to speak up and say, this doesn't make sense. And this makes us feel like shit. So I think a different framework is, okay, so my kid keeps hitting someone with the Nerf gun. And what you said was so insightful. My kid. Maybe they just don't even have the impulse control to have something as awesome as a Nerf gun because. Right. And not shoot it at someone. If every time I threw food from my plate, it's stuck on the ceiling and you're like, becky, don't do that again. I'd be like, I feel like I've just got to see if that keeps happening. I'm newer to the world, and if I did it and someone's like, you don't respect Jordan. I'd be like, no offense. This is not anything to do with my respect for Jordan. I just found this phenomenon pretty fascinating, and I wanted to see if it would happen again. This to me. And I want to make this usable for you and our, like, listeners here. I call this your mgi. When our kids act out, we all have an lgi, least generous interpretation. We all do. My kid doesn't respect me. My kid's a sociopath. My kid has no empathy. Like. And then we intervene from that interpretation. A massively helpful thing in any part of life. And you can't use it in the moment until you've really practiced it out of the moment. My kid has this Nerf gun. I said, don't point it at your sister. They point it at your sister. I agree. Bad behavior. What is my most generous interpretation? If you really force yourself to answer that you do something powerful, you separate identity from behavior. Okay. You probably say some version of, I have a good kid who's unable to control themselves with a Nerf gun. And every sibling has some anger toward another sibling. And this seemed like an opportune moment to take that out. It just all was a perfect storm. And so what should I do? This actually Goes back to our job. I think a lot of times we get into situations where we're punishing and, quote, disciplining, even though I don't think that's the right word. Our kid. Because again, we're not really doing our job as parents, right? Where we're not setting a limit, where maybe the intervention is. And again, this is where our intention matters, because I'm going to say the same thing, but you'll hear it differently. Look, you're being ridiculous with that gun. I can't trust you, and so I'm taking it away. Intervention is taking away. A kid is going to feel like a shitty kid, and you're going to feel bad at the end of the night versus. Look, the truth is, it's really hard to have a Nerf gun and make responsible decisions, especially when other people are around. I'm taking the Nerf gun because. But it's not because you're a bad kid. You're a good kid who had a hard time. My job as a parent, my number one job, is to keep you safe. And I actually love you so much, I'm willing to make decisions to keep you safe, even if you protest and get mad at me. And this is one of those decisions. The Nerf gun is going away. Maybe there's a time in a week or two where I'll take it out, where it's just you and I. There's no one around. We'll play with it safely, and as we do that a few times, you'll show me you're increasingly capable. But for now, it's going to be away. Like, we do that. Not to our kid. We do that for our kid because we actually want to protect them from doing things that make them act like a bad kid.

[Jordan Harbinger]

All right, now, I might not have been loved enough as a child, but you can show this podcast some love by supporting the amazing sponsors that make this show possible. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Caldera Lab. Let's be honest, most guys like me, we don't have a skincare routine.

[Unnamed Parent]

Come on, man. I just splashed some water on my face. Call it a day. But when I started getting dry and flaky, got ashy up in here, I.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Realized I had to do something about it.

[Unnamed Parent]

And I used to just dip into Jen's products until I discovered a better solution that wasn't a hundred dollars a swipe.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Caldera Lab, this is skin care. It's made for guys like us who want to look good without a 12.

[Unnamed Parent]

Step chemistry set on the bathroom counter.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Just simple stuff that actually works.

[Unnamed Parent]

And my go to is Caldera Labs Daily Moisturizer. It's called the Base layer. Nails the texture, no greasiness, no stickiness, definitely no mayo on the face kind of situation. It absorbs really fast, feels clean.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I like that. Caldera Labs the Good is really popular too. Their naming thing.

[Unnamed Parent]

What do I have no room to say anything because this is the Jordan Harbinger show so it's not like I'm creative at naming things either. But anyway, the good is an award winning serum packed with botanicals and antioxidants. Also, I love the clean slate that cleans without drying your skin out.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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[Unnamed Parent]

Without becoming a freaking skincare guru influencer, Caldera Lab is the move. Start with the base layer. Tell me what you think.

[Unnamed Sponsor]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

Order this episode is sponsored in part by Audible. People always ask me how I managed.

[Unnamed Parent]

To get through so much content, especially since I prep for every interview. I'm talking two to three books a.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Week and it's all thanks to Audible. I've got Audible in my ears while.

[Unnamed Parent]

I'm getting my 10,000 steps in running.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Errands, even doing stuff around the house.

[Unnamed Parent]

I don't mess with physical books anymore at all. Audible is just way more efficient. I listen on 2 or even 3x.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Speed, which lets me cover a lot.

[Unnamed Parent]

Of ground without sacrificing quality.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Right now I'm listening to Good Inside.

[Unnamed Parent]

By Dr. Becky Kennedy.

[Jordan Harbinger]

She's got this really down to earth.

[Unnamed Parent]

Way of talking about parenting that is not preachy.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And here's what a lot of people don't realize. Audible is not just audiobooks anymore. You get access to thousands of titles with your membership, podcasts, Audible originals, and cool stuff like their Words and music.

[Unnamed Parent]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

The variety makes the membership way more.

[Unnamed Parent]

Valuable, so you never run out of great stuff to check out. One day I'm deep in a parenting guide, the next it's a podcast or a spy thriller.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So whether you're into suspense, self development.

[Unnamed Parent]

Or you just want to make traffic suck less, Audible's got you covered.

[Unnamed Sponsor]

Start listening and discover what's beyond the edge of your seat. New members can try Audible now, free for 30 days, and dive into a world of new thrills. Visit audible.com jhs or text jhs to 500. 500 that's audible.comjhs or text jhs to.

[Jordan Harbinger]

500500 this episode is also sponsored in part by Progressive. You ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Shifting a little money here, a little money there, hoping it all works out well? With the name your price tool from Progressive, you can be a better budgeter and potentially lower your insurance bill too. You tell Progressive what you want to pay for car insurance. They'll help you find options within your budget. Try it [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states. If you're wondering how I managed to book all these great authors, thinkers, creators every week, it is because of my network, the circle of people I know, like and trust. I'm teaching you how to build yours for free [e-mail] this course is all about improving relationship building skills. You'll get wisdom like you hear on Today's show with Dr. Becky. And of course, this is all non cringy, very down to earth. No awkward strategies, nothing cheesy. Very practical stuff. Only that'll make you a better connector, a better colleague, a better friend, a better peer. Few minutes a day and many of the guests on our show subscribe and contribute to that course. So come on and join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. You can find the course again, [e-mail] all right, now back to Dr. Becky Kennedy.

[Unnamed Parent]

I'm looking at all the things I did wrong with this Nerf gun situation, like shooting him with it, which is not a good example for him to model.

[Jordan Harbinger]

At the end of the day, they're.

[Unnamed Parent]

Designed to be shot at people, for crying out loud.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I just don't want him to shoot.

[Unnamed Parent]

It at his sister's face while she's eating. But making that distinction is too hard for somebody who's five and it's just not gonna happen.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

I think about someone, I don't know why, like someone who's trying not to drink alcohol. And like, if someone's, hey, you really shouldn't drink alcohol when you're in a bar. Someone would just say, yeah, if you're early recovery, you probably just shouldn't be in the bar.

[Unnamed Parent]

Yeah, maybe I'll go to the bar.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yeah, you don't go to the bar. It's hard to have that urge when you're trying to build skills. And it's actually our job to Protect our kid. And that's actually going to help them make better decisions over time. Where probably a Nerf gun isn't the first situation where they're going to build impulse control. We would have a hard time having impulse control with a Nerf gun.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's true. I'm wondering, is there a way that.

[Unnamed Parent]

Parents today are really blowing it, or is that too general of a question for something as specific as parenting?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

I think that's too negative of a question. I think there's a couple things I'm seeing. Number one, I see a lot of confusion around boundaries and a lot of orientation toward keeping your kid happy, which generally means not setting boundaries. And the thing about this, and I think there's a lot of talk about cell phones and pledges, and John Hight is amazing in the work he's done. My perspective starts younger, which is the cost to not being able to set boundaries with your kids has never been so high. It has never been more important to set boundaries because back when you and I were young, if our parents didn't set boundaries, I don't know, we, like, stayed up an hour later or had an extra cupcake. Now, if you can't set a boundary, your kid's on TikTok at age seven playing video games for five hours.

[Unnamed Parent]

Right. Getting groomed by somebody on Minecraft or something like that.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

And the other thing I would say to parents is if setting boundaries and tolerating your kid, being upset with you, if honestly with yourself, that's hard. The idea that the first boundary you're going to set is delaying your kid's cell phone, that's a joke. Like, a boundary setting is a muscle, and we have to build it when our kids are young around all types of things. And then when you tell your kid, no, we're not getting you a cell phone, and their reaction isn't even as intense as other kids because they're thinking, well, you've always set boundaries. You've always tolerated me being upset with you. You're not becoming a new parent overnight. So I think one of my favorite things is to show parents so you can set boundaries in a way that helps you be closer with your kid. Kids know when their parents aren't parenting. They know it. They won't say it to you, because short term, it feels good. I can't even tell you how many teens in my practice back in the day would tell me stories of essentially parental neglect and not neglect. Like, they weren't there, but they weren't being apparent.

[Unnamed Parent]

Yeah, you said this One. And I wrote it down because it was so sad. It was this girl who, I can't remember what it was, but she didn't want to go to therapy. Can you tell the story? This was actually like heartbreaking. I remember it so clearly.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

It sticks with me all the time. And I think the lessons of it can be really. We can rewind right to when our kids are much younger and apply it. So yeah, there's a 16 year old girl and she such. I don't even know the right word. Pizzazz. That's my most generous interpretation. And so she comes in and she had been cutting, right her arms for years. And I asked her about it and she had been cutting for two years. And I said, oh, have you seen a therapist? Because she told me her parents knew about it. She goes, no, you're the first one I saw. I said, oh, so let me just see if I got this right. You've been cutting your arms for about two years, your parents knew and this is the first time you came to a therapist? Like, how did that connect those dots for me? And she goes, well, my parents did tell me I had to see a therapist two years ago. And I told them, oh, so you're saying I'm a up kid. So you're basically saying I'm the messed up one in the family. Fine, I'll go to a therapist, but I'm gonna lie about everything. I'm just gonna waste your money and that's how it's gonna go. All this, like, rage. I don't know why I knew it in the moment. I was like, I'm just gonna say nothing. I actually think that's one of the most important parenting strategies also is do nothing. Wait. And her countenance and everything about her body language completely shifted from this. I don't need anyone. I don't care about the world. Scorched earth to. She just had this downward gaze. And when she finally looked up, she was so sad. And the words that she said to me literally were, can you believe they let me make that decision? Yeah, I still have the chills. And the way I think we can zoom out from this is our kids will never say to us, thank you for making a decision for me. But they feel it. Imagine being on a plane and you're flying from LA to New York and you're like, I've got to get to New York for this meeting, for this podcast, for this wedding. Something very important. And the pilot is saying, look, I have bad news. I just have this light go Off. I don't know what exactly it means, but we've got to make an emergency landing in Iowa. And everyone on the plane is like, no, this isn't important. You're overreacting. Oh, my God, I had this wedding. And then you hear the pilot, because everyone's freaking out, goes, oh, you know what? Forget it. You know what? Everyone's upset. I'm just going to keep flying the plane. Now picture the passenger cabin as upset as they were. Now I'm like 10 out of 10. What? My being upset is enough to make a pilot change decision. This pilot is now more interested in keeping me calm and happy than they are keeping me safe. That is terrifying. And that is what we have to keep in mind when we're making decisions as a parent to keep our kid happy rather than to actually help them with what's really important. And again, our kids will never say thank you. They're not giving us five star reviews in that moment. But I think if we actually start to see their protest and tantrums as a sign we're actually setting a limit and a boundary. Our relationship with the tantrum changes because we no longer see it as a sign we're a bad parent. We see it as a sign that we're doing our job.

[Unnamed Parent]

I think that is super insightful. I'd love to hear more about do nothing. This is going to sound so much worse than it is. I tend to let most stuff go and pick my battles because my son will. I can almost watch him in real time feel so bad. I'm just, like, picking on him. But he's older and he's currently the one with the strongest emotions. I can see him in real time get really angry about something, maybe do.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Something that we don't love about it.

[Unnamed Parent]

Or maybe not, and then stomp around a little bit and then gradually come back to normal.

[Jordan Harbinger]

He'll even be so angry that he'll.

[Unnamed Parent]

Almost start to tear up a little bit, but not crying. And he'll go and he'll face the corner and he'll just be like, right. He's just, like, letting his anger go. And then he'll turn around and be like, I want to build a Lego car.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And I just don't mess with that.

[Unnamed Parent]

Moment because I feel like that's him figuring out how to deal with whatever crazy emotional wave just crashed into him. And my dad or other grandparents are like, oh, I want to talk about it. I want to grab him, I want to hug him. I want to peel him away from the wall. I Want to ask him what's wrong. I want to tell him he can't do that. And I'm just like, let him do the thing.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Unless the thing is picking up a.

[Unnamed Parent]

Hard object and whipping it at his sister's face.

[Jordan Harbinger]

The rest of the stuff that he's trying to do to get over it.

[Unnamed Parent]

Sometimes, even if he's stomping around or yelling in another room and then he comes back out, I'm kind of okay with that. I don't know.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Look, I like it. I mean, in general. And what you're saying is, I'm always watching to see if something's on the verge of behavior that is going to make him feel like a bad kid or him feel out of control or is going to overtly harm someone else. And at the same time, there's a lot that we can do to cope that isn't that. I don't know, you can go hit a pillow. That's very different than hitting a sister, right? And I think a lot of us know adults. If you would just say, one second, I need a moment to go scream in the bathroom, that would save us all a lot of headaches at work or, you know, at the home. So here's an example that. That happened the other day in my home, okay? So my daughter comes out, I make her breakfast. I hate that breakfast, right? It was either avocado toast, which she loves. Eggs, which she loves, or cereal, milk, okay? Like, it was. Is it not my first rodeo? I'm not making my something random and new right before they're getting on the bus. And it's so tempting in this moment. I'll be like, oh, you're gonna eat breakfast. I made this. You like it, you're gonna eat it. We just latch onto something, and then we know what happens. I mean, nobody wins. All of a sudden, now we're, like, really fighting about all types of things. She gets on the bus, I feel like horrible parent. My whole day is ruined. I hold resentment. I'm probably mean to her when she got off the bus. And then I go to bed, like, just feeling shitty about myself, like, the whole day is ruined. So I think in these situations, like, I don't like that for breakfast, I'm not eating. Or even a situation where my kid in the moment's like, I hate you. We almost have this urge to prove and do all of our parenting in, like, the next 30 seconds. I have to, like, do all of it. It's almost like I don't trust myself to figure it out. And then we hear someone around us, we hear our parent, or it's literally our parent watching. Like, you're just gonna do nothing?

[Unnamed Parent]

Yeah. Oh, that's my parents. When you were a kid, we'd never let you get away with that.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

And I'm like, okay, here's my perspective on this quote. Doing nothing on the outside usually means you're doing a lot on the inside. You're regulating your own emotions as an adult versus doing something on the outside, which looks like, oh, you're gonna eat breakfast or you can't talk to me like that. No dessert tonight. We're, quote, doing something on the outside, but we're doing nothing on the inside. We're just taking our own frustration and we're like, I don't really want to deal with that myself. Regulate that myself. No, it's gonna vomit it. And it looks like something, but it's actually just stooping to their child level. And again, not being a parent and so doing nothing. It's funny what I always tell parents why I call it a strategy with a capital D and a capital N. Because if someone ever says to you, you're just gonna do nothing, I want you to think, no, I'm not just doing nothing. First of all, do nothing is a very difficult strategy to employ. And I am choosing do nothing. It is a choice I am making. It is mindful restraint. It is. That is what the best leaders. You think again. The best CEOs, the best professional coaches respond again. Think about LeBron. LeBron is with a group of kids and you're like, you're the worst basketball player in the history. And he's like, no, I'm not. Have you seen my stats? Like, can you imagine? You're like, you're so pathetic. What? Versus if he says nothing and someone would be like, lebron, are you just gonna let that 8 year old get away? That no one would say that. They'd be like, thank you for being an adult and just letting that moment pass. And I think in some ways we all need to, like, channel our inner LeBron and recognize it as a sign of leadership, not as letting someone get away with something.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I think that's true.

[Unnamed Parent]

There's two sides to the do nothing coin because it can be that emotional, do nothing.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But also, I try not to get.

[Unnamed Parent]

On my kid's case for little things. It's very hard, though, because my parents, they're here all the time, they're the grandparents, but they'll say something like, you're just gonna let her jump on the couch?

[Jordan Harbinger]

And I'm like, yes, she's 3. My son is 5.

[Unnamed Parent]

But I feel this could be an illusion. I feel like they listen more when I'm not on their case constantly about things. And I'm also not spending the majority of my time, which is limited with them. Even though I work from home, I still don't have, like, hours and hours every single day of quality kid time.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I'm not spending the majority of my.

[Unnamed Parent]

Time berating them for something that's nothing.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So the jumping on the couch, the jump out on the bed, fine.

[Unnamed Parent]

I'll get another couch in 10 years instead of 12 years. Who cares? They ate extra candy. Whatever. They already ate dinner. We said they could have one. They took two. Who cares? Or they got two from grandpa. I just don't want to make a.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Big deal about that. But there's a part of me that's.

[Unnamed Parent]

Like, am I ruining my kids? They're so good 90% of the time.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I just don't want to spend the.

[Unnamed Parent]

Entire other 10% where they're iffy, being hard on them, because I feel like that's all they're gonna remember. And it's exhausting.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And I'm not sure that it actually works.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

I think there's so many different things you're saying. First of all, it's just how much is fun or joy of value in our family? Jumping on the couch is fun. Playing games and playing hide and seek or these silly things that kids do, or how much do we just value joy and fun? And is what my kid doing from a place of joy and fun, or is it from a place of making a bad decision? Or really, again, you're probably not letting your kid draw a Sharpie all over the wall. If they wanted to have fun, there's. Grandparents are gonna call that being easy on a kid. And another framework is joy and fun. And cultivating our family home to feel that way is actually a value of ours. And when we can allow it, we do.

[Unnamed Parent]

That is such a good way to look at it. Cause it's true. They're like, she's gonna break that. And I'm like, you know what?

[Jordan Harbinger]

I don't care.

[Unnamed Parent]

It's just a thing. I don't even like it. It's an ottoman, for God's sake.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

So I think that's one. I think another thing is something I think we all need to just pay attention to. Cause again, it relates to generations. And what's harder and harder is I can tell you from my kids, who are now 7, 10, and 13 one of the things I really care about as a skill, I think it's one of the most important life skills, is frustration tolerance. Your ability to tolerate frustration, which in the world we live in, is getting to be a rarer and rarer skill, because dopamine and quick wins and easy satisfaction is just dime a dozen on our phones or on iPads for kids, et cetera. And so to me, that's just really important. I think everything that happens in adulthood that really leads to true success, none of it comes from childhood early success. It actually comes from childhood tolerance of frustration and struggling. That's what makes for gritty, resilient adults, is I don't expect to be successful right away. I am able to tolerate working towards something and not yet having success. Ironically, the longer we're able to tolerate the space between wanting and having or between not knowing and knowing, the more successful we are. And so the only thing I think that relates to is, okay, I let my kids jump on the couch, too. My couch looks like shit, to be honest. And again, I'm like, when my kids are out of the house, we'll figure that out. It's not a value. But again, if I think is that one sign that my kids struggle to hear no and respect it and tolerate frustration, and if I say yes, it is, because I just don't really love setting boundaries. That's a different thing. That's not about fun and joy. That's about a poor kind of frustration tolerance environment. But if I say to myself, no, actually, that's just an example of joy and fun. And there's plenty of other situations in life where my kids are learning how to tolerate frustration. Then again, that feels like an important ingredient in a good home.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Parent]

When I think about it, it is really. God, they're having so much fun chasing each other on the couch. They're throwing the pillows off at each other, and it's hilarious. It's not, oh, I'm too much of a chicken to tell them that they shouldn't do that because I don't want to be a buzzkill and they won't love me anymore. No, it's really. It's just not a big deal. You can jump on a mattress.

[Jordan Harbinger]

If that mattress can hold my heavy.

[Unnamed Parent]

You know what? It can hold a toddler. It's just not a big deal to me.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yeah, that's exactly right. And I think what you're checking in with Jordan, which is important, is what are my values? And you're saying, like, I actually. I value being able to Say yes to my kid when I can. Not from a place of fear, but from a place of fun. That's a fun thing, to be able to run around on your couch as a kid. And if I value that, then I'm acting in line with my values. And that's a great parenting decision then.

[Unnamed Parent]

Yeah, we do all kinds of stuff.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's just funny because you have the.

[Unnamed Parent]

Voice of your parents, in my case, literally in the room with you. Sometimes it's just in your head and they're not there, and I envy those people. But we bought a ton of whipped cream because my daughter likes it on strawberries, and she always eats it in the morning, and I'll just at night.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Spray it into their mouths or put.

[Unnamed Parent]

It on their face.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And my parents are like, what are you doing? That's junk food. And you're spraying it and it's making.

[Unnamed Parent]

A mess, and it's on the floor now. And I'm like, yeah, isn't this fun? Everyone is having fun except for grandpa, who's, like, horrified, right?

[Jordan Harbinger]

But whatever. It's my house. But it's so easy to get in.

[Unnamed Parent]

Your head and think, oh, yeah, you know, I wasn't allowed to do this. Maybe there's a reason for that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But then it's like, the reason was.

[Unnamed Parent]

Because my dad wanted to complain about something or, like, thought it was weird, or he would have gotten hit with the wooden spoon from grandma, his mom, if he did something like that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So it's just all this stuff, and.

[Unnamed Parent]

I want to question all of that stuff, because it doesn't make sense to parent the same way that a Ukrainian immigrant with eight kids and one little house parented now that it's 2025. And I can do it differently.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

There's so many big picture things you're saying. A strong belief I have is every parent is doing the best they can with the resources they have available. That's always been true. I really do believe that that doesn't mean that we necessarily got everything we needed from our parents. They could have been doing the best they could, and there could be things that we thought, I wish I had more of this or that, which is kind of our opportunity when we become parents, that it's not about blaming your parents. It's about saying, what do I want to take? And what are things I want to do differently? And the second thing, and this is, again, really, I think what good inside stands for. The only thing that comes naturally in parenting is how you were parented, which makes sense. Parenting is a language like if you were raised in English and you wanted to speak some Mandarin to your kids, you would never expect to just pick up Mandarin naturally like that.

[Unnamed Parent]

That's a good point, right?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

You would probably tell a friend, first of all, that's, I think I would say to friend, that's amazing that you want to speak a new language. That's so cool you're taking that on. And did you download duolingo? And the other thing about language that's really helpful to think about it that way is what language do you think you'd speak to your kid when you're most stressed out and overwhelmed? Back to English. We all go back. And if that happened, I don't think you'd say, oh, all that Mandarin I've been practicing is just not worth anything. I'm back to square one. Okay, you go back to English and then you go back to Mandarin lessons. And the reason I think that's so useful is I think it counters what we've been told, that there's a maternal instinct for women that quote, I should be able to figure this out on my own. This is to me good. Inside is essentially like a great version of parent school. Every other area in our life, a doctor, a lawyer, they get specialized education. I believe parenting in a way that feels in line with your own values and is a skill. Some moments come naturally, but a lot don't because in those moments you probably hear your own parents voice and anything new feels awkward. Not because it's wrong, because it's new.

[Unnamed Parent]

What do you think is one parenting trend today that we'll look back on and regret? You touched on the focus on happiness. I wonder if there's something else or if that's the main, I mean, without.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

A doubt, I think that is the main thing. But I'll give you another one. Keeping our kids happy. To make it even more extreme, what it does is it steals our kids capability. We steal it. We make ourselves feel capable in the moment and we make our kids feel not capable because we deprive them of the experience of seeing that they can get through hard things and hard emotions. So I think that is the biggest thing. I think another version of that is this thing I keep hearing. If I not so say no to my kid or I'm not supposed to say no, or there's this version of my kid is my friend. But again the best friends I have, if I was really acting out, they would call me out on it like, and by the way, they do it in a way that lets me know they love me, and that's the place they're calling me out from. So I just want parents to think. Sure. You want to think about yourself as a friend. A friend doesn't let another friend do everything they want to their own destruction. And so I think bringing these two things together, there's this real short term focus, like, act good inside. I say we're very long term greedy in our parenting approach. Your kids are gonna be out of your house way longer than they're gonna be in your house. And the stakes only get higher. So whatever feels hard now, again, it's gonna be a bigger stage later on and the biggest gift you can give your kid. What if my kids go into college and adulthood feeling like, I know how to deal with frustration? I know how to bounce back from failure. I know it's okay to feel disappointed and that I have a way to get through it, not just distract myself from it. I know I'm going to feel jealous of people, and I know how to deal with that. That is what makes for really strong, resilient kids. But it requires us to tolerate our own frustration in the moment and not just make a situation easy. Think. A lot of people have said to me, like, good inside doesn't really seem like a parenting approach like it obviously is, but it feels like as applicable to my kids as it does to how I interact with people in the workplace and leadership training. And I think that's all true. I also think we can go a step further. I think these ideas are really relevant to what we see in politics and just in the world in general, where people are increasingly unable to hold to seemingly oppositional truths at once. People also seem to be struggling with separating who someone is from what someone does. We kind of judge someone based on a single idea or a single behavior, which I would say is the collapse of behavior and identity. I think all of this just points to how impactful it is in terms of what happens in our house with our kids. It's not only about their behavior and it's not only about their early patterns that are going to impact them the rest of their life, but it's actually the adults they become and the decisions they make. And at the end of the day, the adults are the people who rule the world. Even now, as a founder, because Good Inside is a tech company, we have this amazing app. All these people who want to optimize every area of their life. That is what our app is. It is AI. It is all the things it is right there. It's technologically sophisticated. And I take pride in the fact that as a CEO of a startup, I have an executive coach. My founder friends, if I ever heard any of them say, I would never get a coach, I don't think they'd get an investor to invest in them. I think they'd be like, I think we can create a world where parents kind of brag about the education they're getting. You remember when you went home from the hospital, you're like, what do I need? And they're like, a car seat. And you're like, okay, that's it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Just tie your person a car seat.

[Unnamed Parent]

Everything else falls into place.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

It's really nasty. Because then what happens when parenting is hard is if we're told it should come naturally and we should be able to figure it out from Instagram clips, then we just blame ourselves. We feel like something's wrong with us. We feel like a failure. This whole comes naturally thing that has actually held people back for years, which then holds back the next generation because we just pass on our issues to them. And so I'm actually very heartened by this generation of how many of them are saying, I'm going beyond Instagram. I'm going beyond a podcast here and there. I actually don't care about anything. Like, I care about my kids. And it's time for me to put my dollars and my energy into the things I really value. And I have so much hope that this is the generation that's going to create very resilient kids and, by the way, build their own resilience as adults along their way.

[Unnamed Parent]

It's a solid pitch. I am a fan. You know, I read the book a while ago, and I don't have the app yet. I'm going to have to grab that. We'll put the link in the show. Notes. What do you think today's kids are missing that past generations had?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

So I don't like the idea that we have to learn 20 million different things. That's overwhelming for me as a parent. So I think the things that are missing came more naturally in the past. More space to figure things out, more time, less supervision. Like, I don't think we had as many parents rescuing kids because we didn't have so much instant gratification in our life as parents. And so our tolerance for our kids tantruming about a puzzle was higher because we're like, what else am I going to do than tolerate this tantrum? So the thing I think these kids are missing is a space to struggle, to not know, to be Left out sometimes to not be able to read right away, to just be able to struggle and muddy your way through it, and to also not have your parents watching and orchestrating every moment to put you in a bubble. Like, I can't even tell you how many people I know. And again, it's such good intentions. Call the school. My kid has to be with Jordan and Chris in class next year. They have to be with their best friends. And I'm like, I don't think people did that when we were kids. I don't even think they knew the number to call. There probably wasn't a number to call. It's just like, you get. And what I hear is. And again, there's nuance. There's always nuance. But oh, my goodness, like, I really believe this for my kids. I would never want to deprive them of the opportunity to find out they're in a class with none of their friends. Because what they will have to figure out that year is going to be so helpful for them when they're older. And so I think this goes back to that. Do less, do nothing, and really think my job, again, it isn't to keep my kid happy. It's actually to optimize for resilience. It means creating an environment that represents adulthood. We can support our kids, but supporting and solving are very different things.

[Jordan Harbinger]

All right, you might have screwed up your kids, but you can raise my sense of self esteem by supporting the amazing sponsors who make this show possible. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by BetterHelp. You ever notice how nobody blinks when a guy goes to the gym to stay in shape, but the second you.

[Unnamed Parent]

Mention going to therapy, it's like people just get weird about it. Oh, mental health. Is everything okay, man? Yeah, I'm just trying to be a.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Decent, functional human being.

[Unnamed Parent]

Wild, right?

[Jordan Harbinger]

A lot of men are struggling, afraid.

[Unnamed Parent]

To talk about it. They go on Reddit instead or whatever. But I'm a fan of therapy. Not just the get stuff off your chest therapy. That's huge.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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[Unnamed Parent]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

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[Unnamed Parent]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

So, yeah, don't be afraid to get some help.

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[Jordan Harbinger]

Is sponsored in part by Oura Ring. How you feeling today? Tired, Kind of foggy. Here's the real question. Why do you feel that way? Most of us just guess. I think I slept okay. I feel stressed.

[Unnamed Parent]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

So that's why I keep seeing more and more people wearing them. It's stylish, it's useful, it helps you get better over time. So if you want to feel better and look good doing it, give or the finger. Learn [e-mail] Jordan this episode is also sponsored by Skims Underwear. Super important to me. Comfort is key because holding, you know.

[Unnamed Parent]

It'S holding my junk all day, kind of.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I tried all kinds. They were kind of forgettable that I found Skims was making underwear for men and I was like, wait, Skims is in the brand my wife and her friends are obsessed with, the one she won't stop raving about every time we do drop hits. I gotta check it out. And now I'm wearing women's underwear. No, I'm kidding. Anyway, these things, these things really did surprise me. My go to is now that was not that funny. Skims cotton three inch boxer brief. It's got that classic look I'm used to, but the fit is way better. No sag, no write up. And the cotton is soft in a.

[Unnamed Parent]

Way that makes my old underwear feel like sandpaper by comparison.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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[Unnamed Parent]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

That's kind of the dream, right? So if your drawer is full of stretched out stuff. Yeah, time to get Skims for Men.

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Shop skims [e-mail] and let them know we sent you. After you place your order, select Podcast in the survey and select the Jordan Harbinger show in the dropdown menu that follows.

[Jordan Harbinger]

If you like this episode of the show, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment support the amazing sponsors who make the show possible in the first all of the deals, discount codes and ways to support the podcast are searchable and clickable [e-mail] deals and hey, if you can't remember the name of a sponsor, you can't find the code. You're not sure if it even exists. Please do email us jordanordanharbinger.com we are happy to surface codes for you because it is that important that you support those who support the show. Now for the rest of my conversation with Dr. Becky Kennedy.

[Unnamed Parent]

What do you think is something that parents maybe do or even say on a semi daily basis that unknowingly damages their child's confidence?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Okay, Jordan, confidence. I think we think confidence is a kid feeling good about themselves. I don't think that's what it is. I think confidence is self trust and I think they're very different. Because if you're optimizing for your kid feeling good about themselves, you tend to actually build a lot of self mistrust around any emotional experience that is distressing. So here's an example. The reading is a good example. But another example, maybe your kid's saying, all these other kids on my travel baseball team have gotten like really good. I don't know if I'm gonna make it this year. Okay. And then we say things to our kid. Maybe we're like, that's true. I kind of know my kid's not gonna make it this year. Now I don't recommend saying it's true. You're really not good at baseball. Obviously that's not what I would say, but I think we say these things to our kids maybe even after they don't make the team. That tryout was so unfair. This coach really has something against you. We think that's building confidence because we're trying to optimize for good. If we're optimizing for self trust after my kid doesn't make the team, I might even say look, you even noticed it earlier, some of these kids over the summer, they're hitting the ball a lot farther and they're pitching a lot faster. And when I hear my kids say, it's so unfair, the coach has it out for me. What I'd probably say if I was on my game, I don't know if I would be, because none of us are perfect, is you're really disappointed you didn't make the team. This is actually a huge thing, and I'm going to say it, especially with boys, is they tend to take their vulnerable feelings and turn it into kind of indignation and anger and orient out almost like someone must have done this feeling to me.

[Unnamed Parent]

Yeah, that sounds familiar.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Who did this vulnerable feeling to me? Right? And I actually think this can't happen overnight. Our job is to help our kids almost reclaim their feelings. It's not about fairness. My kid is disappointed. I am on this with my kids about referees. Nothing bothers me so much as at the end of a game, I hear these kids being like, oh, we lost the game. That ref was awful. To me, it's like such early entitlement, which really is just the inability to tolerate your own frustration. That's all entitlement is. This can't be my frustration. Who did this to me? It's the referee, right? And it's like, I can't have this feeling, so I vomit it onto someone else. To me, when I hear that, and I think about confidence, which, again, confidence isn't your ability to get a win every time. Confidence is your ability to have a bad loss and then say, what did I do? What could I do differently? What part is actually under my control? Which again, you think an NBA player, like, their best strategy after losing game is blaming the ref. Again, it's pathetic. We would never want that player in our team. We'd be like, refs, whatever. I miss my foul shots. I'm gonna go to the gym tomorrow so I can make more. I didn't pass as much as I was hogging the ball. And to me, we have to help our kids in terms of confidence, really see that confidence isn't about being the best. It's about tolerating being you when you're not the best and getting more of a sense of what's going on inside you than blaming the world for your struggles.

[Unnamed Parent]

That's fascinating, and I think you're right. There's all these early things my parents did intentionally or unintentionally, that built a lot of confidence. One example, my mom Always points to she is conflict avoidant in many ways. And so I would go and buy a video game and I'd be like, this thing sucks, I want to return it. And she's crap, I'm gonna have to go back with them and like tell them we don't want it. And they're gonna fight me because they always fight me on the policy. So what she started doing is making me do it. And so from the age of, I don't know, whatever, eight, I was in charge of talking to the manager of this software store and being like, I don't like this. And they would always be like, you can't just return a video game that you've opened. And I'm like, yeah, according to your policy, I'm able to do this within 30 days or whatever. And some of them would really push back really hard. And my mom would only jump in if they were totally being unreasonable. But usually they're like, oh, here comes that little shit again with a game he doesn't like. So I was able to do that early. And so now as an adult, my whole life I've never had tolerance for getting shafted by a company or not being able to return something or I'm always like up to a point where maybe it's a little annoying. I'm like negotiating the price of certain.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Things where appropriate in my opinion.

[Unnamed Parent]

But my mom goes, oh yeah, he got that from me because I never had the guts to do this. And so I made him do it. It worked out for him.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I just think that's really interesting.

[Unnamed Parent]

My built this sense of self worth. Like I can negotiate with adults as.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

A child and maybe it came from fear for her. Another place it could come from. To me, this is a powerful question. What jobs do I not want to work my way out of as my kid's parent? And what jobs do I want to work my way out of? Like I can tell you, as my kids get older and they inevitably make mistakes or find themselves in tricky situations, a job I'll always gonna be happy to have is I want them to know they can call me and I'm gonna be able to help them right through it. I do want that job. I want them to have other people who have that job, but always happy to have that job. Water bottle rememberer. I don't really want that job at all. I really don't. Toast maker in the morning when they're old? Nope. I would like my kids to know how to make themselves breakfast and remember their water bottles and check in at the orthodontist. So at various ages, I think I can say to myself, okay, Becky, am I working my way out of water bottle, Remember? Or am I locking myself in? Because then we have a kid who's 10 and I say to them in a moment of frustration, you have to remember your water bottle by yourself. This is insane that I'm still doing it for you, but I have to a little bit look in the mirror and say, okay, so first of all, am I setting my kid up for success? If this is a skill, do I help my kid with their own handwriting, write post it notes on the door? Remember, water bottle? We all need visual prompts when my kid does it but still forgets, Again, this is a water bottle. It's not an EpiPen. Am I like, you know what? This feels harder than I thought, but I'm not doing it. I'm not purposely letting them fail. No, again, intention matters. But this is an okay thing to go through. It probably will be part of their arc of, oh, man, I was thirsty at soccer practice. Oh, yeah, that stinks. Oh, you forgot. Okay, I want to work myself out of that job. And so I think your mom worked herself out of that job. And what happened is there was enough of a vacuum that you worked yourself into that job, which made you more confident and capable.

[Unnamed Parent]

Yeah, she basically made me do it. She's like, if you want to get a different game instead of being stuck with the one you don't like, you have to do the talking. And she would stand there while I did it. It's sort of funny to think back on that. I was literally like 7 or 8 old. I wonder what patterns you notice in kids with high versus low self esteem.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

I guess I don't think kids inherently are born with one or the other, but a lot of this comes from the messages, the responses. Kids are just expert in noticing this. I believe you, and I believe in you. Do my parents think I can become capable over time about something that I initially find difficult, or do they rescue me from it, which is really a way of saying they don't think I'm capable of doing it? And so what I noticed with kids over time who have higher self esteem, number one, they've learned to figure things out for themselves. But that process is messy. What it really means is in the home, parents were tolerating tantrums. They were tolerating whining. They were saying some version. I remember my son whining about this puzzle. He was doing probably three or four. He was Doing a puzzle he couldn't figure out. Please just do it for me. I can't figure it out. And as a parent, of course, there's a moment, permission to anyone listening to be like, you know what? I'm just doing the puzzle. I can't deal tonight. Fine. But I remember this thing I said to him vividly, because I was like, wow, that just felt really right. I said, look, I'm not finishing the puzzle for you, but let me tell you why. The best feeling, I think, in the world is the feeling you get when you think you can't do something. And then you take a breath, but then you watch yourself make progress. That is literally the best feeling in the world. And I won't take that feeling from you because I just know it's gonna come today, tomorrow, sometime soon. Okay, now again, he didn't say, like, oh, that feels so poetic. He kept whining. You know what I mean? He did. But to me, kids with high self esteem have been in environments where they go through the mess and then figure out after. It's only after mess that you're like, wow, I guess I'm capable of more than I thought. That's what self esteem is. And then they take that in to the math class later, and they're willing to take on the bonus problem. They're willing to put their hand up and get something wrong. Because they know, not from knowledge of someone telling them from experience that they can get through those things and bounce back.

[Unnamed Parent]

So the shift we make is allowing them to hit the wall, tell them they can take a break, and just sort of letting them figure it out. I love that line about the best feeling in the world is when you think you can't do something and then figuring it out on your own. Because I think that my son would go, huh, okay. And then he would take a break and go back and attack it.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yeah. And look. And again, our intention matters because a different version of that is, this is a puzzle. Do it or don't do it. But by the way, you're just giving up. And you could definitely do this puzzle. I picture Pam being like, but I'm doing the thing Dr. Becky said. The reason I even said that because first of all, I don't know if he could do the puzzle. Who knows? It was kind of hard. When our kids are younger, essentially, we're forming their talk tracks. Like, we might as well do that in a way that works to their advantage. We have this opportunity to build identity that a kid thinks they're capable and Nobody feels capable from early success. You actually feel fragile because you feel so attached that your identity is linked with early success that you can do a very, very narrow range of things. This is the best news for a parent. They're like, wait a second. So my kid not doing the puzzle is a good thing? Yes. Your kid not being in class with their best friend? Yes. You're not doing a bad parenting job by being there to support. You're actually allowing your kid to access, over time, their capability. It's just a lot messier than what we think that will look like.

[Unnamed Parent]

How often do people send you a comment or be like, oh, this is wimpy, pushover Gen Z parenting. This is that gentle parenting crap.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

You know what's interesting? Zero. Really? I'm shocked because I don't think anybody who's heard me talk ever says that. Dr. Becky, she sounds really soft. I don't know if you feel like that in this conversation.

[Unnamed Parent]

No, definitely not. But I'm also on board. Otherwise, you wouldn't be here. Right?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

I guess that's true. But honestly, this sounds weird and I don't want to. Maybe this is wrong to say, but I'm just going to put it out there. What will happen is there's often a wife in a heterosexual marriage, okay. And they're like, my husband is worried about raising snowflakes. And this is the best thing when they say, look, can you convince my husband, I'm not going to do that. I'm not walking into a dumpster. No, thank you.

[Unnamed Parent]

Okay.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

But what I will say is, this is what I want you to say to your husband or your wife, whoever's skeptical. First of all, skepticism is a cousin of curiosity. If you're skeptical about something, you mean you really care? Like, you and your partner probably both care about raising resilient kids. Maybe you disagree on the road to get there, but you want the same things. That's amazing. And this is what I tell someone to start with my Alternatives to Punishment program. Okay. Because. And invite them to watch it. Not in the way, like, hey, will you watch this? And you'll see why you're wrong? Who wants to do that? What I'd say to someone is, can you watch it? You'll probably disagree with half of it, but at least then you and I have something to bounce our energy off of. And we might not be on the same page, but at least we have common language. And then we have something to talk about instead of just escalating. And then there might be things. But I think when you break it down how we approach parenting. There's so much between punitive control and soft permissiveness. I don't think until good inside, we've actually been given a roadmap for what the in between looks like. And I think in our heads and in our hearts, when we hear certain examples, we're like, I could have used that and it wouldn't have made me soft. So I think we need to get more people to dip their toe in. And sometimes a reel isn't the best example because we're all short circuited. How much can you say in 60 seconds? It seems it's so short. But I actually don't get that a lot from people because I think the tone of feels in line with how CEOs and coaches talk to employees and players.

[Unnamed Parent]

That's a really good point. The people who say, oh, this is wimpy, Gen Z pushover parenting, if they were at work and their boss was like, that's it. You're not taking a lunch break, pal. You're not going on the business trip, they would be like, this company is psycho. I'm out of here. This is ridiculous.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Seems pathetic. And same thing with a coach Again, it's actually the same thing. The thing that people don't understand about good inside and why I would never call it gentle is we put so much emphasis on boundaries. And when you hear me talk about a boundary, you're like, oh, that does not sound soft at all. You actually are like, I'm actually not even setting boundaries. My punishments and threats are soft. That is soft because not acting from a position of power, you're not true power.

[Unnamed Parent]

This is a tangent, but have you heard of the strict dads movement? Have you heard about this?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

No. Tell me about it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's a little creepy.

[Unnamed Parent]

I don't know a ton about it. I've seen groups. People invited me to them when I had kids. Well, it's kind of what you'd expect. None of my daughters can have makeup until they move out of the house unless they have permission from me. Nobody gets a phone. Or if they have a phone, I'm reading all of their text messages. It's this sort of weird domination control over the whole family.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And what I find particularly creepy is.

[Unnamed Parent]

It extends also to the spouse sometimes. It's not just strict mom and dad. We were a strict household. It's like strict dads. It's like, the dad is driving, and.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It'S just very odd.

[Unnamed Parent]

The reason I thought of it is because you just mentioned it's about this position of weakness. If you are a dad that takes care of the family and has the boundaries and is guiding the children correctly.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yes.

[Unnamed Parent]

If there's a problem, you might want to look at your daughter's phone. Okay, I get that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But checking someone's phone, text messages every day is. You would never do that to your.

[Unnamed Parent]

Spouse unless you were a psychopathic control. Red flags everywhere.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But somehow when you do it to your kids, it's.

[Unnamed Parent]

I'm just being a strict dad. That, to me, is a massive flag. It's just bizarre to me. I thought you would have heard of it. Cause I thought people would bounce this stuff off of you. But maybe they know better than to tell you no.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

But I do want to say that I have a deep passion to connect with more dads. Because what I see also, that's very hopeful. I feel like dads these days, like, they really want to be involved and it's not just about time. Like Sarah, Like, I want to be a kind of different version of a dad. I want to be present. I want to also be the one my kid comes to when they're upset. Maybe not just a mom. I just think that's amazing. And in a way, I still feel like there's more shame from moms almost getting a real parent education than there is from dads. Because I think this idea of maternal instinct. I've never heard the world talk about paternal instinct. So there's almost more openness, which is kind of amazing that maybe the dads can be the one to say, if they're married to a woman, like, hey, together, why would this come naturally? This is a new language. This matters to us the most. This is all parent education. What we do is preventative mental health care. There is nothing more impactful on your kids overall mental health as they get older than the dynamic with you early on. And of course, the dynamic with us early on is dependent on how much we have access to true education and resources. And so to meet maybe dads. And I would love dads from your show. Like, I want to think, like, how can we get dads to really help also, like, lead this movement? Because I think they can have a lot of amazing impact.

[Unnamed Parent]

I agree. A show fan. His spouse sadly passed away and he has young daughters. And he took a class on how to braid hair. And I just. He told me the story because he was definitely the only guy in the class. And people were like, what's going on? And he's, oh, I want to braid my daughter's hair. And they Were like, oh, bring your wife next time. And it was like this whole. That was obviously a sad story, but.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It was so interesting. He's like, I felt insecure about going to this class because of course, all.

[Unnamed Parent]

The women were kind of young, and then one of them thought it was.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Creepy that he was there.

[Unnamed Parent]

Of course, until she heard the story and then she was horrified and felt terrible.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But you're right.

[Unnamed Parent]

Every dad I know wants to be more involved. One of my buddies homeschools his kids because his wife works and he also works. He just works from home. And it's just a really interesting setup. That certainly was not the case when we were young.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And I'm not talking about before.

[Unnamed Parent]

People say, like, oh, you know, a bunch of wimpy Silicon Valley dads. No, My friend looks like a biker meth dealer. He has head to toe tattoos and there's a gun guy and he's, yeah, I'm homeschooling my kid and we're going.

[Jordan Harbinger]

To go to the zoo today.

[Unnamed Parent]

It's going to be awesome.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And people are like, is this satire?

[Unnamed Parent]

Because it's the exact opposite of this masculine archetype that he presents as. But you're right, dads.

[Jordan Harbinger]

We've realized finally, my generation has gotten.

[Unnamed Parent]

The memo that it's the most rewarding job you can have.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

It's really interesting. Like, all these dads who come into our app first. I just did this book tour. We had so many men who, honestly, my wife told me about the app because women are like, I'm a failure if I need this. It's so interesting. Men are like, I don't feel like that. Like, why would I know what I'm doing? But I find I'm like, oh, my goodness. All these men have now been lowering the shame for their wives to feel like, hey, let's educate ourselves together. I just feel like that's so cool. I saw over and over.

[Unnamed Parent]

I think you said this on a podcast. It's the only job you actually care about on your deathbed.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

It's true. And I think that's why, again, what we really want parents to do is say, it's just so interesting. So often we do align our choices, our money, our energy with our values. I think parenting is the one that, like, culture makes it really hard to do that because of this narrative, that it should just come naturally. I think that narrative is way more harmful than hurtful. And so, yes, it's the one we care the most about. Of course, we love the heck out of our kids.

[Unnamed Parent]

And.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

And I Think there's this duality. Maybe we're ending on a way we started. I can be a hyper masculine dad and want to really show up in a different way than dads have in my whole lineage for their kids. Those can be equally true. Like, I can be firm and have limits, and I can be loving and connected. What if we didn't have to choose in our families? And then if we raise kids that way, like, I really mean this, like, the world that those children, when they become adults, will build will become a very different world than the fractured one we live in. And I think I am a long term optimist in thinking that the way we really do change the world is what we're doing in our home. It's like a huge factor.

[Unnamed Parent]

How do we share scary things with kids? We had an attempted break in a couple of months ago while we were home. They tried to break into the room that I was in, and I scared the guys away by screaming at them and then barricading the door, called the cops. And my daughter will say things like.

[Jordan Harbinger]

The bad guys come next time, Dad's gonna scare him away. Or are the bad guys outside?

[Unnamed Parent]

She'll be playing on the remote control for the tv and she's, I'm calling the police because the bad guys are gonna try to get in. And it makes me feel sad because clearly their sense of safety has been.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Rocked a little bit.

[Unnamed Parent]

And I just don't know, like, how do I explain this kind of thing to them?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yeah, so a couple things, and you're gonna notice a trend we have to understand before we intervene. I think that's like, for parents. Okay, so what's the thing we have to understand? And here to me is a principle to hold onto. Information doesn't scare kids. Noticing changes and scary things in their environment and not understanding those things terrifies kids. So it's not the information often as much as it's ironically, the lack of information. And again, imagine being in an office and just hearing layoffs, 20% hard times, and nobody talks to you. And imagine just what it feels like to go around the office. Then imagine a sturdy leader. That's what good inside parenting is. It's sturdy leadership. And by the way, when you really learn the whole thing, you're like, this, by the way, is just working at my workplace too. It's like, all the same stuff. Because imagine a CEO saying, hey, I know words gotten out. Let me just tell you something, even though it's a little premature and I wouldn't have done it, but Here we are. We will have a round of layoffs. I know that's not what anyone wants. Here's what I know. We're going to announce it on Friday. Here's what I don't know. I don't have the exact list yet. I'll announce more on Friday. It is a tough situation. As a company, we're going to get through it. That's who I want to be as a CEO, I can name what's true and I can talk about things that people already are noticing. And so that's the principle that guides me. So already your kids know about this thing? I think we almost get out of reality. I wish they didn't. They're so young. They're hearing you say, grandma has cancer. So either you're going to talk to them about it or you're going to pretend like they didn't hear it. Which, by the way, Jordan, is one of the biggest things we do to undermine a kid's confidence.

[Unnamed Parent]

Why don't we gaslight the crap out of them? Yeah.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Oh, no, no. You don't hear anything. They're like, oh, I guess I can't trust myself.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Grandma's fine. No, she fell, but she was just pretending.

[Unnamed Parent]

Clearly that's not the case because everybody freaked out. Yeah.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

So what I would say, even now, a big thing also is learning about this stuff. And educating ourselves doesn't mean we're going to be perfect parents. There are no perfect parents in my family. We have a mantra that says perfect is creepy in general. I think that's helpful to think about. So we're going to get it wrong. But actually, then we can repair and go back to our kids. So I think you can say, hey, I want to talk about something that happened. You heard that loud noise. And then we just. We need to give our kids stories. Take all the disparate things kid notice and weave them together. And we all do better with a quilt than random patchwork floating. Because when kids have patchwork that isn't quilted together by a parent, they have to make up their own story. Then they tend to perseverate on it. Your daughter going through it in play, I actually think is adaptive. Because kids learn through play and they gain mastery through play. Like, for all I know, she's like, and then the bad guys left and she's just actually trying to gain mastery of it. But sometimes kids do it in play over and over. Cause they're like, nobody's telling, telling me what's happening. So I just have to figure it out. So I would just tell her the story, a version that's appropriate. So again, there's a version of like, how truthful. Only a parent knows. The version of truth that, again, isn't avoiding because that just makes kids fear and is developmentally appropriate. But, like, death is a good example. Some people say weird things. Grandma's in the clouds, Grandma's sleeping. Like what? Like, well, just think, Grandma died. Death is when the body stopped working.

[Unnamed Parent]

Yeah.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

So, you know, oh, no, we're not gonna see her. Thank you for asking me that question again. It kind of goes back to resilience. When we believe kids can tolerate something, they become able to tolerate that thing.

[Unnamed Parent]

That's reassuring. She did tell me the other day that she's not afraid of the bad guys now because she's a ninja. So I'm just gonna let her keep believing that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And it has been interesting to watch.

[Unnamed Parent]

Their resilience and hear their resilience. My son doesn't talk about it much anymore. He's got his Nerf gun, he's got his Lego cars, he feels fine. He did say he was gonna sleep with his Nerf gun back when it happened so that he could protect himself, which I thought was low key hilarious.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

But also sad and just a line that I find sometimes naming what's true is one of the best things we can do. So it might seem simple, but even just saying to your daughter, you're still thinking a lot about what happened and period, like, that actually is really helpful for a kid. You're just noticing their processing or not fixing. Just, wow, you're still really thinking about that that stuck with you. Yeah, I think about that sometimes too. Can actually be a missing piece for a kid in their processing.

[Unnamed Parent]

I think a lot of people in my position, they don't want to open up about these things because they feel like it's a personal failure. A couple of producers were like, oh, do you want to admit that, you know, you didn't do the right thing with your kids? And I was like, yeah, I think that's kind of a good idea. Because I don't think anyone listening is going to be like, I've never made a mistake parenting.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

No, I think we all, again, like, it's one of the main things with kids. We all learn the best when other people are imperfect. None of us like to learn from perfect people. It's full of shame because you're like, I could never be like that. And so I actually bet your audience just is more willing to learn from you and has more trust in you. It's like what I say all the time. I just yelled at my kids. I was on my phone too much. My kids don't have Dr. Becky as a mom, and I wouldn't wish that on them.

[Unnamed Parent]

I think it's funny. The app example is what to do.

[Jordan Harbinger]

When your kid has a hard time losing.

[Unnamed Parent]

Because my son, he just hates losing games. And we're like, it's fun. The thing falls over and it doesn't matter if you lose. And he's just like, no, I want to win.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And I'm like, I get it, but.

[Unnamed Parent]

You can't win every time. It's.

[Jordan Harbinger]

He's slowly like, oh, I lost.

[Unnamed Parent]

And it's. Everyone laughs and it's fun, but he almost takes it like it's personally.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

So if you go on our app in our library and you look at. If you search for frustration, the first thing is that building resilience and improving frustration tolerance. Having a hard time losing actually is a sign a kid needs more frustration tolerance skills because they're not tolerating the frustration of losing. And those skills then also help in academics and struggling at math, winning and getting in a hundred at whatever it is. And so it all relates. And so to me, when kids show us the things they're struggling with, it's good because you're like, oh, that means at this age, I can already know the skills you need help with. That's like a huge leg up in life rather than figuring it out at age 18.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's a good point.

[Unnamed Parent]

Yeah.

[Jordan Harbinger]

He does this thing where he's like, like fishing for compliments. We'll go, what is that word? And he'll go, oh, it's rug.

[Unnamed Parent]

And we're like, no, it's rag. And he goes, oh, I can't read. And we're like, you just read this whole book and you got one word wrong on a sign that you pass. But I think he wants us to reassure him that he can, which is.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Actually, I'm telling you, the confidence and frustration tolerance, I think it'll blow your mind. Because actually it goes back to how reassurance sometimes diminishes confidence in the moment it feels good. But when they're older and someone else gets a promotion before, if the only way they feel good is getting a promotion at the same time, that's more fragile than being like, okay, sometimes I make mistakes. Sometimes something happens here and I can still find myself and keep going. That's, like, the thing we want.

[Unnamed Parent]

Yeah, that's good. So instead of saying, you can read.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You just read this whole book.

[Unnamed Parent]

We just say, like, sometimes we get words wrong, and we just have to keep trying and get it better.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

I think you'll get so much. But, like, even better than that, the next time you're reading a book, when you make a mistake in front of him, there's nothing more powerful. It's like you learn more from your boss saying in front of a group, hey, guys, I'm sorry I yelled earlier. Whatever you're more likely to say in your next meeting to your team, I'm sorry I yelled just because they did the thing and made it more okay. So you guys making mistakes in front of your kid? Believable ones. Maybe you're doing a crossword puzzle. Oh, I got the whole thing wrong. Oh, I burned garlic. Oh. Sometimes when I burn garlic, I feel like I'm a horrible chef. Am I a good chef? You know what? It's okay to burn garlic. No one's perfect. Because when we just say to our kid, it's okay to make a mistake, it's all here. That's not how kids learn. It's through experiences. So this is just one of many things, but that's actually probably gonna be more powerful over time, you struggling, than the lessons we directly teach them, which don't end up sticking. Cause again, it just speaks to logic. But logic is obviously not even present in the moment when we all get upset.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Dr. Becky, thank you so much.

[Unnamed Parent]

I know we're out of time. I really appreciate you coming on the show. I hope we get to do this again because I have so much more stuff, and this has just been educational, not only for me, but I think anybody who's interested in human behavior, not just parenting, and that's what I think is so fascinating about all of this, is that it applies so broadly.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Thank you. Excited for a part two, and this was really fun. Thank you.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Here's a trailer for another episode of the Jordan Harbinger show with the legendary Esther Perel as she sheds light on cheating. Not just being about the thrill, but about finding a part of ourselves that we've lost.

[E]

Affairs also happen often in good relationships. They're not just symptoms of relationships that have gone completely awry. Sometimes a person goes looking elsewhere, not because they want to find someone else, but because they want to find another self. Nuclear family life is a bitch. It's really a stressful situation on people, especially if they have, on top of it, young kids, pets and in laws and older parents and all the other responsibilities of life. We were not conceived to live like this. What's going on is this. There is what people fight about and then there is what people fight fight for power and control. That's the hidden agendas of most fights. Whose decision matters most? Who has priority? Is it about care and closeness? Can I trust you? Do you have my back? Can I rely on you? And respect and recognition? Do you value me? Do I matter? Much of couples life, when things begin to go a little bit awry, is putting the responsibility on the other person without paying attention enough to what can I do to make this better or in what way am I contributing to my partner feeling the way they do. So it's very important what is relational and what is individual and where do you start to make sense of this complicated and often very painful experience.

[Jordan Harbinger]

To hear how our fights can actually make our relationships stronger and what the future holds for love in the age of AI, check out episode 911 on the Jordan Harbinger Show. All things Dr. Becky will be in the show [e-mail] including advertisers, deals, discount codes and ways to support this show. Those are all searchable and Clickable over at jordanharbinger.com deals. Please consider supporting those who support this show. Also our newsletter Wee Bit Wiser. I love writing it, you love reading it. That's what I see so far.

[Unnamed Parent]

Anyway.

[Jordan Harbinger]

The idea is to give you something specific and practical, much like what you heard about here on the show. Something that'll have an immediate impact on your decisions, your psychology, your relationships. It's a two minute read max, every Wednesday and if you haven't signed up yet, I invite you to come check it out.

[Unnamed Parent]

It's a great companion to the show.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Jordanharbinger.com News is where you can find it. Don't forget about 6 Minute Networking as well. Over at 6minutenetworking.com. I'm Ordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn and this show. It's created in association with podcast one. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Tadasidlowskis, Ian Baird and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for the show is you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. If you know somebody who has kids or is thinking about having them, I think this is a great episode to share with them. The greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn, and we'll see you next time.