You’re Not a Bad Parent, You’re Overwhelmed with Dr. Becky

Summary

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Podcast Summary: What Now? with Trevor Noah

Episode: You’re Not a Bad Parent, You’re Overwhelmed with Dr. Becky

Date: December 4, 2025
Host: Trevor Noah
Guest: Dr. Becky Kennedy
Notable Contributor: Eugene (Co-host/contributor)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Trevor Noah sits down with Dr. Becky Kennedy, the celebrated clinical psychologist and parenting expert known as “Dr. Becky” and the “Millennial Parent Whisperer.” The conversation delves deep into the realities and struggles of modern parenting, exploring Dr. Becky’s “Good Inside” philosophy, the emotional legacy of childhood, the complexities of repairing parental mistakes, and why being overwhelmed does not make someone a bad parent. In classic Trevor Noah style, the discussion is candid, insightful, and peppered with humor—offering validation, practical advice, and empathy for parents and anyone navigating formative relationships.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Dr. Becky’s Purpose: Healing Parents and Children

• Dual Mission: Dr. Becky articulates her goal to help children grow while facilitating healing and growth in parents themselves.
  • Quote: “Good Inside helps my kid grow and it helps me return.” (Dr. Becky, 03:46)
• Parenting isn’t instinctual—it’s a skill that can be learned.
• The parent/child dynamic is a unique opportunity for adult self-growth, offering moments to repair and reflect that can reshape both generations.

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The Role of Identity: How Labels and Mirrors Shape Us

• Parental Labels: Trevor reflects on how adults pass their own projected labels onto children, which later become children’s self-identities.
  • Quote: “Many of the labels I even hold of myself were donated to me, and I just kept them.” (Trevor, 06:44)
• Parents as Mirrors: Dr. Becky stresses parents continually reflect back to children who they are—whether through language or action.
• The Power of Binaries: The family dynamic often imposes restrictive roles (e.g., “the generous one” vs. “the selfish one”) that inhibit growth and reinforce negative behaviors.

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Nature, Nurture, and the Environment

• Temperament vs. Environment: Children’s innate personalities (“temperament”) interact with the environment parents create. It’s not a blank slate, but a dynamic interplay.
• Parenting “match”—some parents naturally mesh with certain children, while others face more friction.

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The ‘Good Inside’ Approach: Behavior Isn’t Identity

• Separating Identity from Behavior: A foundational principle is the distinction between who a child is (“a good kid”) and what they do (“having a hard time”).
  • Quote: “You are a good kid having a hard time.” (Dr. Becky, 11:26)
• This separation applies at all ages, offering a framework for curiosity and connection instead of animosity.
• When parents hold to this view, it encourages a team mindset instead of an adversarial one.

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The Collapse of Curiosity

• Loss of Curiosity: Dr. Becky coins “the collapse of curiosity” to explain the danger of ceasing to wonder about the roots of someone’s actions.
  • Quote: “As soon as…we're no longer curious, we have no curiosity. Curiosity would say, I wonder what's going on.” (Dr. Becky, 14:03)
• Without curiosity, parents—or anyone—jump to punitive judgments, shutting down the chance for improvement or understanding.

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Efficiency in Parenting: Invest Now or Pay Later

• Time Spent: Learning to address behaviors and teach skills upfront saves time and emotional energy over endless reaction and correction.
  • Quote: “You tend to spend time preparing or reacting. And whatever way you spend time, you don’t mentally account for it as time.” (Dr. Becky, 18:21)
• Interventions—like talking about feelings, validating struggle, or engaging in role-play—often take just 90–120 seconds, but can make profound differences.

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Modeling, Conditioning, and Sibling Dynamics

• Birth Order & Sibling Systems: Sibling roles drastically shape children’s adaptations—being “the good one” can come with self-abandonment just as being “the difficult one” can have its own costs.
  • Quote: “Lessons we learned in our early years…were really protective back then…but can in many ways work a little bit against us sometimes in adulthood.” (Dr. Becky, 25:53)
• The system, not just the parent’s intention, plays a huge part.

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Attachment, Boundaries, and Validation

• Parenting’s ‘Job Description’: Parents have two main jobs: boundaries (safety, structure, limits) and validation (witnessing and accepting feelings).
  • Quote: “A parent has two main jobs all the time, and it's boundaries and validation.” (Dr. Becky, 29:31)
• “Safe” does not equal “comfortable”—sometimes discomfort is necessary for growth.

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Cultural and Racial Nuances in Parenting Safety

• The World Isn’t Fair: For many Black parents, preparing children for societal prejudice often feels at odds with “soft” parenting philosophies.
• Nuanced Honesty: Balance validation at home with preparing children for external realities. (“Not everyone is going to give you the benefit of the doubt.” – Dr. Becky, 33:17)
• Home as Haven: Even if the world isn’t fair, strive for fairness and empathy at home.

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Single Parenting, Gender Roles, and Gaps

• Addressing Gaps: Honest conversation with children about family structure and limitations (e.g., single parenthood, gender difference) can be more powerful than pretending those gaps don’t exist.
  • Quote: “That…is an amazing initial conversation with your daughter. This is something I think about.” (Dr. Becky, 41:03)
• Every family has its strengths and challenges; it’s critical to validate the child’s reality and feelings.

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Overprotection vs. Underprotection

• Inspired by Jonathan Haidt’s work, the hosts discuss the modern paradox: children are overprotected in real life but underprotected online.
• Artificial Adversity: Parents should create situations at home that foster resilience, frustration tolerance, and skill-building (e.g., sharing, waiting), even outside of sibling dynamics.

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Repair: The Magic of Healing After Mistake

• Repair Is Essential: The single greatest marker of secure attachment is repair, not perfection.
  • Quote: “One of the markers of a secure attachment…was repair. It wasn’t being perfect. It was just the fact that after you…yell or make a mistake, you went back…and you offered reconnection.” (Dr. Becky, 70:25)
• Repair means taking responsibility without blaming the child or seeking validation from them (“It’s never your fault when I yell”).
• The danger isn’t the mistake, but the absence of repair, which leads children to internalize shame and self-blame (“self-doubt and self-blame are the only coping mechanisms”).

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Shame: The Real Enemy

• Shame as Disconnection: Shame is a child’s signal that a part of them is dangerous to the attachment—leading to suppression, explosion, or lifelong issues with self-confidence.
• The antidote is unconditional validation of feelings—not behavior consolidation.
  • Quote: “Children are driven by attachment…Shame is fear of disconnection.” (Dr. Becky, 93:20)

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Lying: Curiosity and Connection over Contempt

• Why Kids Lie: Lying is a child’s effort to avoid feelings, to preserve wishful reality, or, most importantly, “preserve attachment” when they fear the truth will threaten the bond.
• Parents should avoid punitive confrontation and cultivate curiosity, sharing their own stories of imperfection to invite honest dialogue.
• Don’t set traps: Never ask a question you already know the answer to; foster an environment where the truth can be told.

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Consistency, Community, and Emotional Honesty

• Consistency: What hurts children is not parental inconsistency per se, but the lack of recognition and validation when it occurs.
• Community: Children need to feel they always have a home base, that their family is a “community” always present, despite actions or mistakes.
• Truth and Vulnerability: Parents sharing their own struggles fosters emotional honesty and reduces the child’s sense of isolation and shame.

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The Power of Self-Compassion and Parental Goodness

• Parents Are Good Inside, Too: Parenting is hard, often triggering unresolved childhood patterns. To show compassion and curiosity for kids, parents must extend the same to themselves.
  • Quote: “Intergenerational change doesn’t start by changing your interaction with your kid. It starts by changing your interaction with yourself.” (Dr. Becky, 129:24)
• Growth is possible for both parent and child—everyone is “a good person having a hard time,” and most mistakes are opportunities to repair, reflect, and grow.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

(With Attributions and Timestamps)

• “Good Inside helps, you know, my kid grow and it helps me return.” – Dr. Becky (03:46)
• “Many of the labels I even hold of myself were donated to me, and I just kept them.” – Trevor Noah (06:44)
• “You are a good kid having a hard time.” – Dr. Becky (11:26)
• “The collapse of curiosity.” – Dr. Becky, introducing her own new term (14:03)
• “Any bad behavior is when feelings are greater than skills at any age.” – Dr. Becky (31:32)
• “A parent has two main jobs all the time, and it's boundaries and validation.” – Dr. Becky (29:31)
• “If I can't tolerate my kid's frustration, how can they learn to tolerate it?” – Dr. Becky (50:33)
• “Shame…brings a freeze state. You can't change if you're frozen.” – Dr. Becky (117:49)
• “Telling your kids stories … is like our kids are almost screaming in their behavior: just tell me I'm not the only one.” – Dr. Becky (119:39)
• “Intergenerational change doesn't start by changing your interaction with your kid. It starts by changing your interaction with yourself.” – Dr. Becky (129:24)
• “Love is processing somebody through the most generous lens possible.” – Trevor, referencing Alain de Botton (126:37)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Topic/Segment | Timestamp | |------------------------------------------------|----------------| | Dr. Becky’s Purpose: Healing Parents & Kids | 03:17–03:50 | | Parents as Mirrors, Labeling and Identity | 06:44–08:05 | | Temperament vs. Environment | 08:24–10:11 | | ‘Good Inside’ Philosophy | 11:11–13:14 | | Collapse of Curiosity Explanation | 14:03–16:13 | | Investing Time in Parenting | 17:34–18:29 | | Sibling Dynamics and Family Systems | 22:34–27:21 | | Boundaries vs. Validation | 29:31–31:32 | | Cultural Nuances and Parental Safety | 32:01–38:46 | | Single Parenting, Gender & Family Gaps | 40:59–44:36 | | Overprotection, Artificial Adversity | 45:00–54:17 | | Repair: The Key to Secure Attachment | 70:25–73:09 | | Shame as Disconnection | 93:20–98:16 | | Lying: Why and How to Handle It | 101:19–114:44 | | Parental Goodness & Intergenerational Healing | 127:58–129:39 |

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Flow & Tone

The episode strikes a balance between radical honesty, vulnerability, and practical wisdom. Trevor Noah’s probing but playful style, Dr. Becky’s deep empathy and clarity, and Eugene’s personal anecdotes combine for a conversation that is simultaneously professional, relatable, and reassuring.

They challenge the “instinct” myth, normalize struggle, and de-shame both parenting mistakes and childhood behaviors—reminding listeners that everyone is “a good person having a hard time.” The show closes on a hopeful note: by seeing the goodness in ourselves and our children, we can break cycles, heal together, and build a better world, one real repair at a time.

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For Parents, Caregivers, and Anyone Interested in Growth:
This episode is a practical, compassionate guide for recognizing the complexity of parenting, the importance of honest repair, and the transformative power of seeing the good—both inside your child and yourself.

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Transcript

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

An advisory from the Surgeon General found. Nearly half of parents say most days.

[Trevor Noah]

Their stress is completely overwhelming.

[Eugene]

And when parents are stressed out, it affects their kids.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Parenting is a full time job. You know, we all work, but parenting is hard. Parenting is not easy, never has been, never will be a good inside. We believe parenting isn't something you're supposed to just know. It's something you can learn. That's the one and only Becky Kennedy, aka Dr. Becky, as she's known. Also known as the millennial Parent Whisperer. Many parents love the clinical psychologist. Videos and podcasts on everything from te tantrums to mom rage. She's got more than 4 million followers across social media platforms and she believes that parents and children are good inside.

[Trevor Noah]

This is what now with Trevor Noah.

This episode is presented by Whole Foods Market. Eat well for Less. This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Did you know that Apple Card is designed to help you pay off your balance faster with smart payment suggestions? And because fees don't help you, Apple Card doesn't have any. That's right. No fees. So if your credit card isn't Apple Card, maybe it should be subject to credit approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City Branch. Variable APRs for Apple Card range from 17.99% to 28.24% based on creditworthiness rates as of 10-1-20. Existing customers can view their variable APR in the wallet app or card.apple.com terms and [e-mail].

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[Eugene]

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[Trevor Noah]

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[Eugene]

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[Trevor Noah]

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Doctor Becky, thank you for joining us.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Thanks for having me.

[Trevor Noah]

I told you right before we started recording, but I'll tell you again. I don't think there's a topic that excites me more than parenting. Genuinely, genuinely, genuinely. Like, like I followed your, your work. I think I first became aware of you like most people during the pandemic, you know, when everyone was forced to be at home with their actual kids and then they started realizing that they don't like them. And your.

And then your videos became the salve, your videos became the reprieve that parents needed in this time. And then your book has been amazing. And I, I, I think, you know, like where, where I really wanted to get into this conversation from was behind the book, behind the titles, behind the social media is your purpose. And like what do you think you're trying to change when you, when you actually get out there and you go, good inside parenting, this is the relationship you should be having with your kids so that your kids could have this relationship with you. What do you think your end goal is?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

I, I think there's probably nothing like your relationship with your kid to allow this duality to happen at once, which is we can put better humans into the world and we can heal so many the unresolved parts of ourselves so we can grow at the same time. And so someone else said this to me and it's resonated more than anything I could come up with myself. She said to me, good inside helps, you know, kind of my kid grow and it helps me return.

I think that's kind of my, and a good inside's purpose.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh wow, I love that. Yeah. Because oftentimes we, we think of parenting as a one sided thing. You know, we think of people being parents and that's it. We don't often think about them parenting themselves in the parenting that they're doling out.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yeah, I mean I started, you know, early on in my career working with kids in child therapy. I'm a big believer in child therapy, play therapy, all of it. I just found myself thinking that, well, you're with me 45 minutes a week and then you're with your parents all the other minutes of the week. Right. And so whatever I do with you, if your parents aren't along for the ride, if they're still triggered and yelling at you, then this is a little bit of a drop in the bucket. And so yeah, if a parent wants to help their kid or on the surface we always say we just want to change our kids behavior, make them stop whining or have fewer tantrums. Whatever it is, it brings up so much in us. I mean that's really what happens, that parenting is kind of our best opportunity I think in adulthood for growth. Cause you're just confronted by everything that you didn't yet figure out from your own childhood and it just plays out before your eyes.

[Trevor Noah]

As a parent, how many times do you experience a tantrum from Your kids, where you forget all of the things that you've taught people.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

I mean, innumerable. You know, I mean, I don't. I haven't been too many times to tally, you know.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

I mean, I really. I've said this before. I'll say it again, and I mean it with such honesty that my kids don't have some Dr. Becky person as a mom. Right. And I also mean equally that I wouldn't wish that upon anyone. I mean, we learn the most in our relationships when people take responsibility for their behavior, when people repair. I wouldn't want to deprive my kids of that opportunity. And that's such a part of healthy relationships. So certainly, I have my moments. I can stay calm. A lot of it has to do with, have I been taking care of myself? You know, am I, you know, doing my own personal work. Certainly all of that contributes to my ability to stay calm when they're not. And there's other days and weeks, like anyone else, when I've run myself into the ground or, you know, I said yes to too many people when inside I really wanted to say no. And then all it takes is my kid whining about dinner for me to completely lose it, and I lose it on my kid. But everything that happened leading up to that point is really where the story is.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, I love that. I was talking to Eugene about this. Like, before we came in, we were chatting about trying to find the balance between who you think you are versus who you wish to be and how complicated that is and how oftentimes the story has been told to you by somebody else. Oftentimes your parents. Like, that's, like, the first person in life who tells you who you are. Like, they go, you are a bad kid. You're a naughty kid. Like, when I was reading through your book, I was thinking, man, many of the labels I even hold of myself were donated to me, and I just kept them. I wasn't even told there was an option to not have them. So if you said, trevor, who are you? I'd be like, oh, I was a naughty kid. And I was mischievous. And I was. But that's not necessarily how I saw myself. It's how I was told I was by the adults in my life.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yeah, I mean, I often tell parents this. Where are kids? Mirror. So I think you're talking about words. Sometimes we tell our kids who they are through words. But if you're a mirror for your kid, you're showing them who they are. And then kids form their identity by Taking that reflection in. And so it's one of the things that's really powerful for parents to know because let's even say there's two kids in the family. And so easily with two kids, there can be a binary, right? Oh, this kid is really flexible and generous. And this can be really selfish. And why can't you just be more generous like your brother? Whatever it is? Yeah. And if you think about what I'm really doing is I'm saying to my kid, you are selfish. That's the generous one. And so I'm showing you in this mirror, you're selfish, but I'm acting like you're going to become more generous. The math doesn't even work. Right. And so if we want to bring out the good inside our kids, we have to see that version which people then confuse with permissiveness. Oh, so everything goes. No, that's definitely not what it means. But if I can't see the good inside my kid, they. They truly, you know, are gonna have a much harder time accessing it themselves.

[Trevor Noah]

Which.

[Eugene]

That's actually a good point. Which brings me to this point, actually. I've been thinking about a lot in what you're saying. If parents are the mirrors to their children, which part does personality of the child play in a role of them growing up as an individual, as a human being who's gonna interact with society meaningfully?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

So personality, temperament, Right? Definitely very related. But definitely our kids come into the world with certain predetermined characteristics. I mean, I have three kids. I saw that right away. If I think about my middle kid, that child would not take a bottle from me. If she was looking at me, not joking, I had to face her away.

[Trevor Noah]

Wow.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

As soon as she saw the bottle was for me, breastfeeding was very difficult too. She would vomit her food. And I can't even tell you how much this still represents so much of her. She likes to do things on her own. She doesn't like to depend on people. She actually has such deep need for people. I think that it really scares her. So she almost pushes them away. It was there from the start. This was a kid who wouldn't eat any kind of pureed foods because the only way to get that is to be given until with a finger, she could eat it by herself. She wouldn't even eat anything besides from a bottle. That, again, she'd only consume. Facing away. This is a kid also had huge, big feelings from the start. The separation anxiety started way earlier. The stranger danger, so intense that was with her right Away. Now, then there's a match between that temperament and the environment you're in. Right. And I think if I think about my three kids, you know, the match that happens. What is my kid's temperament? What do they come into the world with? How able am I to be the type of environment, you know, for this child to help them thrive? We're better matches or easier, more convenient matches for some of our kids than others. And then it's kind of that temperament times environment match that ends up forming a lot of personality.

[Trevor Noah]

You speak about good inside, and obviously that's the thesis behind your work and the book. And there's an anecdote that you share in the book about being in Target, seeing this kid melt down like just a kid throwing a mega tantrum. We've all seen it, you know, like the. Throw yourself, start slamming the ground. Drag yourself along like you paint a vivid, vivid picture. And as I'm reading the story, I'm already judging. I'm like, oh, I know this kid. I know this type of spoiled kid, rotten kid, bad kid, all of these things. And then you, you. You have this moment where, you know, the kid is being told, you're so bad, you're so bad, you're a bad kid. And you break it down differently. You know, this is one of the first moments where you talk about, like, the instruction of trying to highlight the good inside a child. You go, I wrote it down. You're like. You go. You're having such a hard time leaving Target. I get it. We still have to go. I'm with you.

Now. When I was reading that, I was like, all right. I mean, I sort of see what you're saying. But if a parent said to a kid, hey, we gotta go, we gotta leave Target versus, hey, you're having a tough time. I'm with you, but we've still gotta leave. What is the difference? Like, what does that actually change for the child?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yeah. And just for anyone listening, none of us are gonna, quote, say the right thing all the time. We all love our moments. There's certainly a time and a place for, you know, whatever we have to say to move things along quickly. But this phrase that's become, in some ways such an embodiment of, I guess, my philosophy, you're a good kid having a hard time is. Is such a foundational and such a healing phrase because it does something very profound. It separates identity and behavior. And I think that's really what we're talking about, which is as applicable of an idea to a baby. To a toddler, to a teen, to an adult. Right. We all have behavior we're not proud of at every age. And what feels awful in a relationship actually is, especially for a kid, because they're dependent on us for survival, is being seen as that behavior. Everything collapses in that moment. My kid is the tantrum. My kid is the selfishness. My kid is the entitlement. And then what happens emotionally for us is our kid becomes our enemy. That's just what happens. It's me against you. You are the enemy. You are the problem. I'm on one side. You're on the other side. You are the problem. And I then interact with you like that's true. Versus, hold on a second. I have a good kid. That's just always true. I think that is always true. I have a good kid, meaning their identity. What's inside is good, and that's kind of over here. And I like using my hands to make a visual. And over here can be a whole range of bad behavior, a tantrum, you know, lying to your face, saying I hate you, saying, you're the worst mom ever. You do nothing for me after getting back from, you know, I don't know, an amusement park where you took your kid, where you don't even want to go in the first place. Right? This is what happens. So seeing your kid as a good kid having a hard time leads to a profoundly different pathway than looking at them like they're a bad kid doing bad things.

[Trevor Noah]

You know, what you've just tapped into is the reason I was so excited to have this conversation is if you read this book and you think to yourself, oh, no, I don't have kids, or it's not about me, or I think you're missing the core idea. It's sort of going to the very root of who we all are as human beings. Cause when I read through this story, I went, how many times have each of us or any of us been in a relationship where someone says, this is who you are? You know, you're an inconsiderate person. You're a terrible partner. You know what I mean? Like, these are the things that people say to each other. And I don't know, you know, about everyone, but I don't think most people feel like this is the moment where they want to show up. They want to spend more time defending themselves, and they feel like they're not on the same team.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Well, now we're talking about something really big. We're talking about the collapse of curiosity.

[Trevor Noah]

The collapse of curiosity.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

The Collapse of curiosity. As soon as. I've never. I said that phrase as if it's like something I have philosophy about. I haven't really thought about it before, but I think that's what you're talking about. Because when you see someone in a workplace who's late five days in a row, hey, I need you to be on time tomorrow. We have a big meeting, and they're late. What's the narrative in our head? Oh, my goodness, this person is so rude. They're so inconsiderate. Or whatever. We say, we're no longer curious. We have no curiosity. Curiosity would say, I wonder what's going on. I do have history with Trevor. He doesn't tend to be late to his own podcast five days in a row. I wonder what's happening for him. And then what happens? And this happens more now than ever is we confuse curiosity with allowing or approval. No, those are totally different concepts. But if we don't allow ourselves to be curious about behavior, we can't understand it. And if we can't understand it, we actually can't improve it. So. So if we get to this tantrum in a grocery store, right? Because my goal with parents, too, it's not like, oh, you have a good kid having a tantrum. That's so beautiful. No, I don't want, like, a million tantrums in Target. It's not like a convenient situation. Situation. No. Let your anchor out. So beautiful. Obviously not. I'm like a normal person. Okay. But it's actually just more efficient to be curious. Okay. Because if I can be curious in a moment, first of all, I'm not gonna let my kid just have this disaster situation. I might have just say to myself, this stinks. I'm not gonna be able to check out my cart. I'm gon to leave and come back. That's just inconvenient. And parenting is full of inconveniences. It just is. So I'm gonna say to my kid, after trying, let's say, to calm them down, look, you're a good kid having a hard time. Something's going on. I'm picking you up. I'm carrying you to the car. We'll come back and get, you know, whatever we were gonna get another day. My kid's gonna protest. They're not gonna say, thank you for your sturdy leadership. Really appreciate this. They're definitely not gonna say that. I'm gonna continue doing my job and get my kid to the car. And then maybe after my kid sleeping again, curiosity would allow me to say, okay, well, what's going on for my kid? Okay, well, I guess we're walking down the aisle and they see a million toys that they want, and I told them we're here for one. I guess it's really hard for them to see a lot of things they want and not have them.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, wow.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Well, you know, I don't even know that many adults that are great at seeing a lot of things that they want and not having them. What skills might my kid need to be able to see things, want them, and not have them? Because wanting things isn't wrong. I would actually say I always want my kid to want things for themselves. I just want them to develop the ability to want, not have, and cope with that. Right. But that's a skill that takes time. Now let's keep going. Right? Maybe one day I have a little time on my hands. I say, yeah, that's hard. Well, how do I get better at hard things? Practice. That's how we get better at swimming. No, kids learn to swim by just crossing our fingers, right? We bring them to lessons. And so I would say it's hard. Look, we're going to do something kind of weird today. We're going to be in our playroom, and you're going to see those red blocks, and I'm going to play with them first. And we're going to take a deep breath and say, oh, waiting is hard, and I can do it. I don't know. A little mantra, right? And I know it's so easy. That takes so much time. I promise you, managing tantrums without developing skills is gonna take way more time. But that whole process, or even just thinking about it differently, comes from being able to have a gap between having a good kid and seeing their bad behavior, identity and behavior being separate. And that gap is what allows for curiosity at any age.

[Trevor Noah]

It's interesting that you just brought up the putting the time in now versus putting the time in later, because my. My first thought, when I think of what I've heard most parents say when they hear anything like this, a lot of them, they'll go, I don't have the time for this. That's easy for you to say. You know what I mean? You know, every time I kid. But what you just said was so key, though. We don't calculate the time that each of those tantrums is taking.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

That's right.

[Trevor Noah]

And so we negate the investment that we would be putting into a child by trying to deal with it and build up the skills and the tools.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

That's exactly right. And I, I don't have a lot of time either. I wanna be honest. Like I don't have like 30 minutes a day that I'm like teaching my kids skills. That's not how long it takes. But in life for anything, you tend, you tend to spend time kind of preparing.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Or reacting. And whatever way you spend time, you don't mentally account for it as time. If you spend a lot of time reacting, you don't think of it as time.

[Eugene]

No.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Although also, you go to bed probably feeling awful about yourself. You wake up at 2am being like, oh, this stinks. You're just up for an hour in the middle of the night. It's actually a lot of time where you're gonna spend a couple minutes with your kid before they go to bed. A lot of these things can take 90 to 120 seconds. Right. It's not like I do this with my kid. We have some profound conversation.

[Trevor Noah]

What would those 90 seconds be? Okay, give me an example. Like, so let's say you've had the target meltdown. Your kid was in a store, they lost. They lost it. I mean, they just went crazy. They were rolling around, they were doing things. You had to carry them out while they were screaming like you were kidnapping them. You get them home. You know, your day has been rough. What are those 90 seconds?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

So the first thing I would say that day is, you're done for the day. Like, there's no learning, lecturing that should happen. You're activated. You're probably resentful of your kid. Your job is just to manage that. Let's say it's now the next day. Again, you have to start from a place of curiosity. What's going on for my kid? I actually think if we think of it like swimming, what skill is my kid missing? That's a really helpful question. It's probably the skill of again, maybe it's wanting and not having something like that.

[Trevor Noah]

Cause they were drowning essentially in this.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Moment, they were drowning. But also they've never learned how to cope with that moment. They don't just get gifted it at age 7 or age 27, frankly, you don't get gifted those skills either. So one, a story immediately. When you make something, a story that you struggled with, you're going to make the moment less explosive for your kid the next time. Because as soon as your kid feels less alone in a struggle, you reduce shame. And when you reduce shame, you make things less explosive. Seriously, the next day, over breakfast, I might say I don't know if I ever told you this. I remember going to a grocery store with my dad and he told me I could get a Milky Way. And I really wanted a Milky Way and a Twix and Reese's and a hershey bar and 100 grand. How do you think I handled that? And this is the best moment if you have a kid who's verbal. Cause I'd be like, you probably just got one thing and like, went on and you're just like, no, no. I had a little bit of a situation. You know, something like that. Right? You did, Yeah. I mean, it's really hard to see things you want and not have them. Hmm. I would say that's you're done for the day. Now, in that moment when you're telling a story, do not look at your kid after and saying just like it is for you, you kind of. You ruin. Like, whenever I hear a parent do.

[Eugene]

That, I'm like, just where were you two months ago?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

No, just like, that's.

[Trevor Noah]

I'm gonna to lie. I thought that's how the story ends.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

No, I thought that.

[Trevor Noah]

I thought it was going to be that thing. I thought you'd turn and be like. And you see, Eugene, remember when you did that?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Exactly. No, you take it out of like the revery. Just like, allow it. Trust that it helps. Another thing, let's say that day you have take your kid grocery storing going to the grocery store, you could say to your kid, this is such a powerful one. So simple. I wonder what it's going to be like to be at Target today. I wonder if you're going to see something you want and I'm gonna say no. Ugh, what would that be like? And again, if you have a kid like most kids, they're gonna roll your eyes and say nothing. Fine. Don't take the bait. I don't know about. For you, that might feel annoying. I don't know. Let's just get ourselves a little bit ready for that. This is true for adults too. So much of how we feel hard moments is the feeling and the surprise of the feeling. And if you remove the surprise, you're left with just the feeling. And that actually makes the feeling a lot easier to cope with because you're no longer feeling disappointed or jealous and feeling surprised. It doesn't feel kind of like an attack to you. Same thing is true with adults. Hey, we're gonna have dinner with friends. Look, I'm making this up, but we're having a hard time getting pregnant. I'm Just gonna tell you in advance. I know our friends are, I don't know, seven months pregnant. It might be a little hard. And, like, let's just both get ready. We're happy for them. We're kind of having a hard time. Totally makes sense that it's gonna be a little of a tricky dinner. People handle that a lot better than if they show up and they're surprised by a situation. So removing the surprise is one thing you could do. That again, takes, I don't know, 90 seconds in advance and makes the situation more manageable.

[Eugene]

So here's my thing that I struggle with as a parent. How much of me parenting is just me giving out advice and modeling the behavior that I want to see, and how much of it is conditioning? Because I'll give you an example. When I was growing up, I had four siblings. I was number three or four. My. My older brother was what was deemed the naughty one. But it's not like he slept without food. He had a bedroom to go to. So his behavior was almost set, as if it was part of him. But my mom always said one thing to me when I was growing up. He's like, if there's one thing that I know about you is I never have to worry about you. Not at the store, not when we go visit other people. You, I nip. But you, I never.

But you I never have to worry about. And I. As I grew up and I realized I try to be less of a problem to people than I need to be.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yep.

[Eugene]

Right. So I'm thinking to myself, was I parented that way, or was I conditioned to be that way?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Well, now we're talking about birth order, which is such a fun topic. And I'm gonna answer your question by probably answering neither of your questions. But tell me if it's useful anyway, because I think it's getting to the core. I think about this as you're in a system. You're in a system of siblings. Siblings are systems. Marriages are systems. Workplaces are systems. Whole families are systems. I think it's helpful to think about. In any system, there's only 100% of equality to go around.

[Eugene]

So there's an infinite number.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Well, let's say there's only a finite number.

[Trevor Noah]

There's a finite finite number. Okay?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

So there's 100% of acting out and naughtiness to go around, which, by the way, is often a kid's way of just learning how to feel their feelings. And they don't yet have skills to manage those feelings. So it's all coming out. So it seems like in your family system, the message was, your brother owns 100% of that.

[Eugene]

Yes. Timeshare to the tantrum holiday hole, literally.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

So there is zero percent left for you to pick up right now. One of the struggles with that is usually it's helpful as we become older in life to not have a lot of rigidity. Like, no one wants to have 100% of any quality. You don't want to have 100% of acting out. But you also don't want to have zero. Because if you have zero percent of that, one of the things you tend to learn over time is my job is to scan every room and figure out what everyone needs from me and keep things very, very peaceful. And often the cost of doing that to such an extreme can be some self abandonment, like, I don't really know what I want, or sometimes I feel like I want something even if it'll rock the boat a little bit. Or maybe I have to distance myself from my anger because it would come out in a big way. And that's kind of my brother's role. And so I think what you're saying is so much of your childhood was shaped by these sibling dynamic roles that were kind of part of birth order and probably part of our adulthood, I think, is realizing, and you were kind of saying this too, the lessons we learned in our early years and the ways we had to adapt to keep us safe were really protective back then and just really impressive and adaptive. But can in many different ways work a little bit against us sometimes in adulthood.

[Eugene]

How many of our romantic partners are we finding ourselves, Ourselves as the other person parenting?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

How many of our romantic partners, like, are we parenting our romantic.

[Eugene]

Do we find ourselves parenting more or do we find ourselves enjoying the fruits of how they were parented? Does it make sense? So if someone is really great to me, am I reaping the rewards of how great they were raised and how well rounded they are as an individual? But if, let's say, for example, I'm dealing with their tantrums, they're trying to take this, they're trying to give that, they're trying to do that, right? Am I now fulfilling the role of a parent because they didn't have 100% timeshare of the tension holiday.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

But I think, I think we're. I think we're talking about, well, how do we end up with the people we end up with, which to me, who we end up being attracted to in our kind of adult life is in some Ways just an activation of our earliest attachment patterns. It's what feels like home. And so if what feels like home based on your childhood is okay. I've become really expert at keeping things peaceful, Never getting in trouble, being really, really stable, because, again, my brother had 100% of all the other things. Well, if that's my puzzle piece, what other puzzle piece would be a really, really good match with mine? Probably someone where there's a lot of stuff going on.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, wow. 100% chaos.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

100% chaos. Because that actually feels like home to you. And you know how to be in a relationship.

[Trevor Noah]

You know how to be the counterbalance to that chaos.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yeah, it's attraction is more about familiarity than it's about anything else. And if you're privileged enough to have an early attachment style that is actually in line with the adult relationship you would want, like I used to always say to my clients in private practice, that's like an amazing privilege. Cause then when you have that first couple dates and you're like, oh, I just feel like there's this magic. That can be an amazing sign. I can tell you, with a lot of the adults I worked with, they would say, I'm actually learning that who I'm initially attracted to is almost my best warning sign. Like, I can't go on a second date with that guy. I just almost know how it's gonna end.

[Trevor Noah]

Right.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

That. That becomes almost the reason to say no.

[Trevor Noah]

That is. It's so interesting when you break it down, you know, to the child level and then bring it back, because it feels like all of it is a slingshot. It feels like our childhood is a slingshot into adulthood. And then it becomes exponentially larger because of the effect that we have on the world and the agency we have over our own lives. You have this line where you say, a tantrum is just a nervous system that is short circuiting. And when I. When I thought of that with a child, it sort of made more sense. Yeah, but then with adults, you see it, and it has so much more of an effect on people. Because if you're a child throwing a tantrum, maybe it's you flailing in a supermarket. If you're an adult having a tantrum, you might walk into a supermarket and shoot everybody. Do. Do you know what I mean? So when you. When you look at it through the lens of, like, a parent and a child in that moment, what is the nervous system that we're trying to repair in that moment? And what are we trying to allow? And how do you Even find that balance. Like, how much do you let. And how much do you not. Because I've seen people who are really repressed or they've, they've, they'll tell you, I was in the strictest household and I never threw a tantrum and I never this and. But then they have like a secret life.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yep.

[Trevor Noah]

You know, so, so how do you, how do you as a parent then know what the balance is? Do you ever know?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

So look, in any given moment, I don't know if we ever have complete clarity of like, this is the perfect intervention, but I think we're really talking about what a parent's job is. Right. And I think this is like a very core idea that can be applied in a bunch of different scenarios. We're not making it up each time. Right. Because most parents I know, they want to do their job well. It's the job they care the most about. But parenting in general has been like having a job without a job description. Because when I ask parents, okay, well, what is your job when your kid's having a tantrum? I'll say, I have no idea. Well, how can you do your job well in any specific scenario if at baseline you don't even know what your job is? So I think a parent has two main jobs all the time, and it's boundaries and validation. Boundaries are limits we set, there are limits we set, there are decisions we make, often for a kid's long term benefit. It's kind of like the structure a kid grows up with around things can only go so far. Not because I'm not gonna let you win, but actually related to the fact that, and this is very important, my number one job is to keep you safe. Now that's been, I think something shifted in the last decade or two where we've confused safety with comfort. Safety does not mean comfortable and happy and optimized all the time, but safe. It's not safe for you to run around target taking things from the wall and, I don't know, throwing them to the ground. It's not safe for you to throw sand in the sandbox at kids. It's not safe for you to watch endless hours of TV or be on your iPad. Those things just aren't safe. So we have to set boundaries. There are limits. And a kid always has the same reaction to a boundary. They're upset, they have a tantrum. You know, throw a tantrum tends to be a phrase I don't love because it almost seems like it's this active, like, yeah, like mischievous. Kid, I'm going to throw little boomerang.

[Trevor Noah]

That they're gonna throw.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yeah, it's just like this, you know, it's. I think tantrums are when. Or any bad behavior, just when feelings are greater than skills.

[Eugene]

Oh, that's all.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, I like that.

[Eugene]

That's a good one.

[Trevor Noah]

Any bad behaviors when feelings are greater.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Than skills at any age?

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, I really like that.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Right. And for decades, we've kind of punished feelings or punished behaviors. But the answer is to level up skills, which never happens when you're punished.

[Trevor Noah]

So when you're in that situation, let's go deeper into this world. You have this child and you're having this experience with them. How do you then? Cause I love that you brought up safety. Cause the first thing I thought of was especially, like black parents, particularly.

Almost everywhere in the world. I can show you a black parent who has said to their child at some point, a version of, if I don't kill you, the cops are gonna kill you. Or if I don't beat you, the world is gonna beat you. Or if I like, they're going, I need to keep you safe. Yeah, rather me. Yeah, they always say that. Rather me.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

If.

[Trevor Noah]

If I don't do this, it's going to be way worse when you get out there. How do you then. How do you imbue your child with that knowledge when they're at an age where they maybe don't understand it? Because, you know, on the one hand, you're saying you're good inside, but I'm assuming you also want to let the child know that this is not how society deals.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Not everyone will see you that way. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Like, how do you. How do you. How do you do that without telling them that they're bad? How do you say to them, hey, this is. You'd be considered a criminal, man Is like the best way to put it.

[Eugene]

But in Japan, you can roam free.

[Trevor Noah]

Wisconsin. Yeah, but it's like, how do you say, like, I don't think you're a criminal, but this is criminal behavior is a good way to put it. How do you do that?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Well, let's. I don't know, let's have some example. Let's say my kid is hitting another kid on a playdate. Something like that. Right. Or on the playground. Maybe it was even more public. Right. Let's start with the job, and then we'll talk about the nuance. The nuance you're talking about is very real and very important. Right. And not. Not all kids are seen the same way.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Right. And so I think you're also asking if you have awareness as a family, my kid won't be seen in a positive light in the world.

[Trevor Noah]

Right.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Do I mimic that behavior in my home? Or do or does my home have to offer something different to that child? Okay, so let's just say my kid is hitting. If I think about boundaries and validation, just as foundational, boundaries would be saying to a kid, I won't let you hit your sister. I'm not gonna let you hit your friend. And let's say I'm on the playground, I would literally take my kid and pull them away. This is probably the number one thing I seen done very differently by parents. And I urge them to realize a boundary is not saying, stop hitting. We don't hit. Those are requests. Right. And again, if you're not hitting your kid, they know we don't hit. So but it's kind of like we're saying to a kid, I'm watching you. Unable to control yourself and make a good decision. So my best intervention is going to ask you to make a good decision. Like, it confuses kids. They act out more because they don't have an adult. They don't actually have anyone keeping them safe. And so a boundary often is physical, which doesn't mean it comes from a place of harm. It actually comes from a place of protection. It's something I do to protect my kid because they're not being safe. Going back to being a mirror, I don't want my kid to experience themselves as the kid who hits everyone on the playground. That's not good for them to build their identity. So I'm gonna stop them and pull them to the park bench. Not like, you're embarrassing me. What's wrong with you? But hey, you're a good kid having a hard time. And no, I'm not gonna let you go back to the sandbox. I still see that you're so activated. Now I'm on the bench with my kid. And again, this is a made up scenario. Who knows if I'd actually have the presence of mine? But then it's a good day in the studio. This is a good day.

[Eugene]

And in Japan.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

And in Japan, I guess it always happens there. I have to learn more. Gotta learn. Gotta drink what they're drinking. So let's say I'm sitting with my kid. I've done this job, I've set a boundary. Right now I can do the other part of my job, which is some version of, ugh, there was only one red shovel oh, it was so hard to wait for that red shovel. Validating the struggle that was underlying the behavior. Validating the feelings. Yeah, it makes sense. You're mad. He was playing with your red shovel. I'm not gonna let you hit. That's why we're taking a break here. But kids can't learn to manage feelings they don't think they're allowed to have.

If you think about what it means to manage a feeling, it means I'm allowed to have this feeling inside my body.

[Trevor Noah]

Wow.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yeah, it's allowed to live in my body. And if you don't feel like a feeling is allowed to live in your body, there's two options. You try to suppress it or it comes out in behavior.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, wow.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

And then coming out in behavior, actually it's like, well, you told me I'm not supposed to feel angry, so I'm just trying to get it out. Right. Through a hit, through your extremities, through I hate you. Okay, so now let's say I'm back home with my kid and I'm thinking, unlike me, I have white children. Like, this is bad news in a different way. Right. And I'm more fearful. Right. About what this need means for my black child. I think. And again, this is probably not happening with like a 2 year old. I don't know about the nuance of the conversation, but these are conversations, you know, that I think are important. Look, I'm always gonna be on your team. My job is to help keep you safe. And.

Not everyone is going to give you the benefit of the doubt. Oh, this is, this is something we're gonna. This is not like a one and done conversation. But yeah. And so in our home, probably, you know what, we're gonna have to like, practice certain in my mind skills even more. We're gonna have to manage certain realities. You're gonna have a lot of feelings about the fact that you're looked at when you're walk down the, when you're walking down the street very differently than some of your friends. Right. And I'm going to be someone you can come to, to talk to about that.

[Trevor Noah]

It's acknowledging the unfairness of the world and basically saying to them, hey, I know that your world will not treat you fairly, but I want you to know that I'm always gonna treat you fairly. And I think that's, that's a slight difference. Cause speaking from personal experience, I don't think my mom necessarily said that to me, but I think that might have been her intention. But she was Going, I can't let you. She's like, I have to keep you safe by doing this before they do it to you because they won't know when to stop. And that's often what she says. She's like, you'll get killed. You know, but it's interesting to think of it this way as to say, the world's not gonna be fair to you. I will always be fair to you. So you have to trust me in this. But.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

And I don't, I don't just, I, like, I don't want to claim to be some, like, expert in parenting black children. Like, that is like, you know, like, that is not my lived experience.

I mean that, like, I really do, you know, And I feel like along those lines, you know, I think about friends of mine, colleagues, like, within the good inside community. There's this amazing woman, Maile Teal, who, you know, we talk a lot about these. She leads, like, our black parents room and like, what is this line? And these ideas make sense and they feel very different from how I was brought up. And I feel like my son in some ways, like, needs these skills and needs to understand how to regulate his emotions. The stakes are even higher. And Becky, like, you don't have to walk around with the same fears as I do. And that plays out in my responses. And so, yes, so I think. But this is, that is, I guess, just a different framework.

[Trevor Noah]

Right? But every parent is raising their kids from there because depending on where you are, like, you'll come to South Africa and now your child, black is the majority, you know, you'll be. So it's, it's. You're always raising your child within the system that they exist within, whether you like it or not. Don't go anywhere. Cause we got more. What now? After this.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Hi, everyone, I'm Ashley Flowers, creator and host of Crime Junkie, the go to crime podcast for the biggest cases and the stories you won't hear anywhere else. So whether on your commute, studying, or while you work, let us keep you company. With new episodes every Monday. It is truly a crime junkie's dream. So join me, my best friend Britt, and our entire crime junkie community right now by catching up on hundreds of episodes and by listening to a new case every Monday on Crime Junkie, available wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey, crafters. You're invited to visit the new knit and sew shop at Michael's. Find hundreds of fabrics in over 800 stores and over 100,000 styles on michaels.com. shop your favorite yarn brands including Big Twist, Caron cakes and Bernat in multiple styles and colors. You'll also find all the machines, tools and notions you need with top brands like Singer Brother and Pellon, plus essential thread and Floss. It's all new at Michaels. Hey, Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile.

[Trevor Noah]

One of the perks about having four kids that you know about is actually getting a direct line to the big man up north.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

And this year he wants you to know the best gift that you can give someone is the gift of Mint.

[Trevor Noah]

Mobile's unlimited wireless for $15 a month. Now you don't even need to wrap it. Give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required new customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow after 35 gigabytes if network's busy, taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com.

[Eugene]

When I heard you were coming, I was particularly excited because one I wanted to ask you, do you have a visa? I know you don't need a visa. Passport to come South Africa so you can live at our house for a little bit because I think we need you.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

I'm in. Give me some dates.

[Eugene]

Well, my question is, and I've, I've often had to struggle with this. As a male single parent raising a daughter, I sometimes feel insecure about what I might be missing out in imparting to her. Is there a study that's conducted to show what the difference is between kids that grow up being raised by a single parent who's the same gender as them versus the opposite gender?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

I wish I was given this question as a little bit of prep because I wish I could have some, you.

[Eugene]

Know, 16 years ago that's what I would have loved.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

But the thing I want to latch onto that you said, I don't know. I'm sure there is some study. I can't recite it right now, but to me, what you said is so poignant as an amazing initial conversation with your daughter. This is something I think about. You are a girl being raised by a single father that allows us some amazing special moments that would never happen if our family system was different. And I'm sure it also means not having other moments because of that exact same configuration. And if you ever feel like there's things you're missing and if you ever feel angry, rationally or irrationally about it, like I'll always listen. Not to prove, not to disprove, just to listen. And I can hear that from you I mean, to me, sometimes that's, you know, an opening for a conversation that could be more powerful than something we learned from a research study.

[Eugene]

I've often found that whenever we have, we've had actually that conversation. What I found is it made her open up more to me and she is now aware that not all her friends see their fathers the same way. Their fathers are the enforcers, right? They're the ones who get done. They're the ones that, you know, if, if, if that guy comes back and this is not done.

[Trevor Noah]

You know, it's funny, it's funny you say that. Sorry to go ahead, but it's funny you say that because I've actually come to realize, and we sort of had a conversation around this, you know, in some of the other episodes is oftentimes it's easiest to spot the gaps in the situation that we live within and then it makes us feel like there are no gaps in other situations. But to your point, I can relate to that as well. Where I grew up in a world thinking like, oh man, you know, I didn't live with my father and so what did this mean? And it would have been better until I met people who went, my father terrified me and you know, I don't even know what a hug feels like. And I didn't grow up in a soft household and I don't know how to express my emotions and I don't know. And then I realized, oh, wow, you always, unless you like super kids. And even then, by the way, I met, I met someone. I've met a few people, but there's one that really sticks out to me. Someone who complained, saying they resent the fact that their parents were so perfect because they feel like it didn't prepare them for an imperfect world.

And I remember going, wait, what did you just say? And they're like, yeah, I'm not street wise. I don't know how to handle chaos because everything was just everyone in the world doesn't match up with, with what I grew up with. So it's interesting that you say that as like, as a realization.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Well, I feel like I saw a lot of those kids who were in their twenties in my practice who I, to me, the word perfect for that is an interesting word choice anyway. But parents who swooped in at every second, always optimizing for happy and ease. And not surprisingly, those kids not only are not prepared for a difficult world, are remarkably fragile and anxious because the range of experiences they learned to cope with was this versus the range of experiences you need to learn to cope with in childhood, to be resilient and functioning as an adult. Is this. Now, I'm not trying to say it's this. Maybe wider is trauma and abuse. Right. But certainly there's a lot between that and always happy, always perfect. That's really dangerous for kids in a different way.

[Trevor Noah]

So how do you find that balance? Like, let's use the sandbox example, you know? Cause I love that you brought that up. We had Jonathan Haidt on the podcast and he was talking about his book the Anxious Generation, and we were talking about the complexities of society. Overprotecting kids and underprotecting kids. You know, so now we live in a world where children are overprotected in real life and underprotected online.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

You know?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yes. It's one of his best lines.

[Trevor Noah]

It really is so good. It's perfect.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

So good.

[Trevor Noah]

It nails it. And in the conversation, even as we're having it now, you go, there are so many complexities. Like, I, for instance, will walk past playgrounds in New York or wherever, and I'll see how the parents are looming over their kids.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

Every conflict is interrupted. Every. I mean, even the idea of a skirmish before it even happens is intercepted by the parent to go, hey, there's only one shovel. Now you will each play with it like this. And I always say, for me, it always feels like a, like a prison yard more than a playground.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Because it doesn't feel like the kids are solving their own issues. Doesn't feel like they're developing their own traits. It doesn't feel like. So I'd love to know how you, how you think of that balance. Because. Cause you're a parent, you're seeing your kids punch someone or your kid is being punched. How many punches before you step in? Do you go, like, my kid takes four shots and then I'm in? Or is it one? Or is it like. No, I'm serious. Like, how do you know how many shots your kid gets to take before I'm in? Yeah. How do you figure that out?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Well, first of all, all of this starts so far before the sandbox. That just is the public representation of so much that is or isn't happening in a kid's home? Oh, right. I mean, how a kid acts on a playground, by the way. I'm not saying it's represent of everything a kid is, but in general, the themes are much bigger than a playground. What is a kid expected to do for themselves? Right. How. How much in the home, if there's let's say two siblings, is it? Well, we have two of every item. So kids are never arguing about things. That would be a horrible policy. Right? I mean, you want your kids early life to prepare them for adulthood. Like, that's what I always tell parents. Like to be very long term greedy about parenting. Right.

[Trevor Noah]

We want long term greedy.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Long term greedy. Right. And so there's a dance, though. And to me, safety is usually the line. Physical, you know, kind of physicality. Someone hitting another kid on the playground. I'm not gonna wait for that to happen four times. I just think I'm probably again, if I have a kid who can get physical, I might even say we're gonna do certain things at home to get ready. Let's practice. Let's even. I might be closer to my kid on the playground in that situation just so they don't experience themselves as out of control. But I actually don't think that's what's happening the majority of the time. The majority of the time, I think these days we're seeing parents just remove any friction or discomfort.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay. Yeah.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

That to me is really the problem. So let's say there's three kids again, there's always three red shovels because Bobby doesn't like blue anymore and so everyone has to have red again. If there's a parent listening who's like, should I not have three red shovels? That's one example. But that just shouldn't be like the representation of your whole parenting approach. We want kids. It sounds bad. You want kids to be frustrated. You want kids to be disappointed. You want kids to be jealous. Unless forever, as a parent, you're going to remove those feelings from their existence for the rest of their life. Again, you can't develop coping skills for feelings you've never experienced. Like, it doesn't happen. Right. And so the playground might be a bad example because if that's the first place you're letting your kid develop coping skills, they're probably gonna get overactivated. But let's even say, you know, it's a smaller environment, not as over stimulating, let's say, as your house. Right. Maybe your kid has a friend over for a playdate and they're hoarding every single item. Now, it's not gonna be fun. Okay, but let's say before this kid has a playdate, might say, look, it's hard to share toys. It's true. And when we have friends over, we allow everyone to use toys. Let me tell you, no one will take a toy after you'll get all the toys back. And part of my job is to help you figure this out. Maybe I'll say something like, I know you have that really special LEGO set. Let's put that away. I understand you're working on it. You don't want someone to touch it after that. Part of my job on this playdate is going to be to help you share. Which means if you're playing with a fire truck and Bobby starts playing with the police car that by the way, you've never played with for four years and only care about when Bobby touches it, I am actually gonna step in to help Bobby keep playing with that. Now Karen hears that, what that means, and this is gonna be awful if this is the first time I'm gonna spend the playdate with my kid in another room managing their tantrum while Bobby randomly is at my house playing with a police car with nobody because his friend is freaking out. Like, and to be clear, parents are like, do you enjoy that? No. Of course that's a completely unenjoyable situation for Bobby, my kid, and for me. But if I'm not laying the groundwork for my kid, if I can't be less afraid of my kid's feelings than he is, then he is not gonna be able to learn how to manage his feelings. Cause again, if we think about feelings and skills, kids are born with all the feelings and none of the skills. So if by the time they're five, they've never had to like share or wait. Waiting. That's the thing with my kids. I'm like, waiting is a thing. It's a thing. We're gonna learn it, we're gonna practice it. Even in 2025, he has to wait for the police car. Well, guess what happens when you wait. You're frustrated. You're maybe focused on the other thing. And if you have all those feelings without any of the experience or skills, the feelings are gonna come out as I need that truck and I'm gonna whine, well, if I can't tolerate my kids frustration, how can they learn to tolerate it? Cause they'll wire their frustration next to my frustration, which it should be obvious to everyone. Then the next time they're frustrated, they're gonna have double the frustration.

[Trevor Noah]

Right?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

So I have to, and this is called co regulation, I have to be able to regulate my in the face of my kids distress. And they truly do take in kind of that calm. And over time they learn, oh, I can manage this situation too. Right. And so I think when we're talking about the playground. If that's not happening in the home, you better bet my kid's not sharing a red shovel. Right. And so, yes, I think a lot of this really has to do with as parents, not just over protection, because I know John Haight. It's all about also the way we don't let our kids be independent. I agree with that, but I actually think it starts internally. We kind of are overprotective of their emotional life. We try to always optimize for comfort, for happy, when actually what's really, really helpful for them is to learn to manage the entire range of uncomfortable emotions.

[Trevor Noah]

You know, when you started the answer, I found myself. The first question I had was, what about parents who only have one child?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Because you sort of have less exposure, less training experience. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. I was like, oh, no, at least, because now you have, like, a little petri dish that you can test all of this before you go outside.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

But you can do it with no, no, no.

[Trevor Noah]

And then, no. By the end of your answer, do you know what I found myself thinking? I went, if I'm hearing you correctly, it's almost like you're saying we forget that the first child our child will meet is us.

Do you know what I mean?

[Eugene]

100%.

[Trevor Noah]

Like, as you were saying it, I was going, Parents take for granted. Like, I know from my life, like, I was the firstborn. I was single.

[Eugene]

You still are.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, I was. And then I was the only child until I was nine years old. But what I took for granted, two.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Things are true at the same time. But in Japan, only one thing is true.

[Trevor Noah]

The thing that I took for granted was the first time I learned play, technically, was from my mom. The way I learned play was with my mom, the way she responded to me. Taking a toy or not taking a toy was developing how I saw the toys. You get what I'm saying? And so, like, when you were saying that, I was going, oh, how much of that should parents be considerate of? Because oftentimes we own. We think of it in a very linear and rigid structure, parent, child, parent, child. But when Bobby's not there and you are there with your kid, with the police toy that you bought them, you're the first kid that they meet.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yeah. I mean, you're interacting with them. Sometimes when parents talk to me and they have an only child, I think one of the things you're also pointing out is siblinghood is inherently full of frustration. And sometimes that feels like too much frustration, but sometimes that feels helpful. In terms of mimicking what someone will.

[Trevor Noah]

Go through in the world.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

So when you have an only child, it's easy to say, okay, fine, you go first at Candy Land, you pick the game, you don't really care. When you have siblings, they're always arguing who goes first, who is that chair? Right. So sometimes, and this could also just be when you're one on one with the child who's struggling with their behavior. I think it's important. And I've had these situations where I'm alone with the kid and I say I want to go first, like almost purposefully to mimic a situation.

[Trevor Noah]

Right, right, right, right.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

I mean, I'm not gonna do that all the time. But if you have an only child and you notice, it's only matters if in the outside world you're noticing they're having a hard time dealing with, sharing, dealing, being in line because they actually don't have as much experience. You can have situations in your own home that a little bit mimic some of, you know, some of those real life scenarios.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, I call it in my life, I call it artificial adversity. That's how I think of it all the time, is I go, your goal as a person is to try and create as much artificial adversity as you can in your life so that you are primed for the adversity that you may encounter. Like going to the gym is artificial adversity. The weight does not need to be lifted, nor does it need to be put down. You're just going to do this repeatedly. The real reason you're doing this is so that your body is strong enough to handle the weights that life may throw your way. Do you know what I mean? Waiting is adversity. But you can, you can artificially wait for a thing yourself. You can go, you know what? I'm not going to eat the ice cream now. Yeah, I'm going to wait three hours. No one's forcing you to do that.

[Eugene]

How many?

[Trevor Noah]

Three.

[Eugene]

For what?

[Trevor Noah]

To just, like, make it happen.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Oh.

[Trevor Noah]

What's the longest you've waited?

[Eugene]

I don't wait.

Dr. Becky, I. Sorry. I wanted to ask questions that I know that I've been struggling with, and I know some people have been struggling with. When you're talking about introducing change in a child's life or in a family or them. Learning to share does not start at the playground, the sand pit. It starts at home. I've often found that many people struggle to introduce a new family member in their lives, in the children's lives, or in Their families. You have a two year old and all of a sudden mommy's pregnant, there's someone else who's coming, the dad feels abandoned. The new child can sort of anticipate abandonment by seeing the energy from the other parent. How do people deal with that scenario and how do people make those kind of introductions so that we don't end up fighting for red and blue shovels at 5 years old?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

So I actually think these things are connected because so often without realizing, our unconscious assumption is that our job as parents is to make or keep our kid happy. And so I'm pregnant, I'm kind of worried how's my kid gonna adjust? And so I just like don't talk to my kid or I flat out lie about things, right? Kids notice everything. They notice everything. They are actually evolutionarily primed to notice more in their environment than we are because their survival depends on it, right? And depends on noticing things. Cause they're more helpless and it depends on us. And plus, I always think, literally for a toddler, their eyesight is at a mom's belly. So they're like, no, I know you're pregnant. Like I look at your belly every day and I hear people say things like, oh, they're so young, or I don't wanna make them upset. Or we just say things like, you're gonna love every second. Nobody loves every second. Having a baby, not a mom, not a dad, definitely not a two year old. There's like nothing enjoyable for a two year old. And so I think there's. And this, to me, a new baby or a new family member is very similar with the advice I'd give around, you know, Aunt Sally has cancer and my kid hears me saying cancer all the time or we're moving, right? Kids actually can handle the truth. They really can. What's more overwhelming them, what's more overwhelming to kids than change is noticing change and not having anyone talk to them honestly about it. That's really scary. Just like it is for adults. Like if you're in an office and you hear layoff 20% and then you go to all hands and someone's kind of asked about it and they're like, everything's good.

[Eugene]

Like boxes are being packed, computers are being, passwords are being changed.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

That's exactly. And you're gonna act out and you're gonna act out. So kids act out when their parents are pregnant all the time. And then going back to the other idea we were talking about, you can only learn to manage feelings. You think you're Allowed to have. Well, if you're always told you're gonna love everything, second, you're gonna love being a big brother, and you're jealous or angry. Well, no one told me I'm gonna feel jealous or angry. So what do I do with feelings I'm not supposed to have? I get them out of my body. And then one day, I steal my baby brother's toy. And everyone's like, why did you do that? You know? You're like, well, he kind of stole my whole life, you know? This is like a. He stole you, literally. So talk to kids, right? Tell them the truth. Doesn't mean you have to say everything, but start. Their questions will help you guide. So, hey, you might have noticed my belly's getting bigger. Let me tell you what's happening. There's going to be a new baby in this family. When? I mean, when it starts to snow and it's cold, some sense of time the baby is growing in my belly, and then it's coming out, and it's going to stay. I learned from my kids. You actually have to say that they're not.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, that's a.

[Eugene]

Wait, what?

[Trevor Noah]

Forget that part.

[Eugene]

You have to tell them.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

We had a visitor for a while. Okay. In our house. Now, I don't know if there's a question or a wish that one of my kids is like, is the baby going with her? And I was like, oh, no, actually. But she has been here since the baby's been here.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, are they gonna stay?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Are they gonna stay? And you can say. And look, we'll talk about a lot of different things. It's okay to have a lot of different feelings at the same time. And to make this concrete for a kid, you might say a part of you, like, almost. This part of you might feel happy and excited. This part of you might feel like, mad. This part of you might feel sad. And I remember saying to my kids, honestly, I have all those feelings, too, because me and daddy love our family with just you. And we're sad that it's gonna change. And we're so excited that there's gonna be a new baby and that our family's getting bigger. You know, along these lines. It's so funny. My oldest kid, when I had my third, was being really difficult when we wanted our first family picture, Right? Like, we tried to get a family picture. Maybe my youngest at that point was like, I don't know, eight days old. He refused to come. And this is a kid who, sibling roles, again, was like, actually, my easier kid, right And I kind of got curiosity. Okay, I have a good kid. He's having a hard time. What's going on? And I said to him, he was probably almost six at the time, so it was helpful. He could talk. I said, what's going on? You know, something's upsetting. I didn't really know what it was. And he goes, can we first have a picture of the original three?

[Trevor Noah]

Damn.

[Eugene]

He never lied.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

The original three?

[Eugene]

The original three. That's how he's always seen his family.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

But absolutely. And you know what? We did it. And this is where, like, it's so important to, you know, we can be effective or, like, be right. Yes. Being right would have been like, well, you've been difficult, so we're not doing that. You know, I was like, okay, let me just, like, roll with this. And we did. And then he suggested bringing in his sister for the original four. There was a sequence and then welcoming in, you know, the baby. He didn't care. He was like seven days old. It's not like he was protesting the order of the pictures. But again, there was. It seems so simple, but there's a reason. There's always some reason, and it doesn't make the behavior okay. But when we understand the reason for behavior, we can intervene, not only in a way that's more effective, but in a way that feels better for us. Like, it was. I was like, oh, I get it. This is a concrete representation of our family. Our family's changing. It was a second boy, which is a little bit more of an injury than a second kid who's a girl. It was like, okay, well, now there's the two boys. And if that was the thing he was kind of looking for and his protest was a way of saying that, well, it was being a little bit curious that allowed it to come out and not just continue in the form of. Kind of. Of a tantrum.

[Trevor Noah]

It's so fascinating hearing you say this at such a. At such a small level, because when you expand it, you see this happening in societies, in relationships, in. In. In workplaces and everything. You know, when you said that, it. It reminded me of something I think I read in one of Esther Perel's books. She was talking about how infidelity is dealt with in a relationship. And she said one of the common misconceptions that people have in.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

In.

[Trevor Noah]

In and around infidelity is forget it and move on. And they found, like, oftentimes in studies, they found that you acknowledging and apologizing for a thing that you've Done. Even though you do it repeatedly, makes the other person feel like they no longer have to bring it up because you acknowledge that you've done it. And in that moment, I'm hearing an acknowledgement. He's going, can you acknowledge that we used to be three?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

And you're going, yes, I can acknowledge that. And then he's like, okay, then I'm willing to accept, can we acknowledge there were four? Yes. Okay, now we acknowledge that there are five. And just. That allows him.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

To sort of create a concrete reality. And you see this even in countries in the world. There are some countries who've acknowledged their pasts. Right. Just acknowledged. And there's some countries that have gone, no, what are you talking about? It's like, no, no, no. You'll be shocked to find that most people in most nations are just saying, can we just acknowledge that this is how it used to be? And now it isn't, and it's changed. And if you can do that, you find a lot of people will go, all right, I'm not saying it will go back, but at least you've acknowledged it.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

I mean, I think you're getting something, like, at the core, I think is humans, Whether you're talking about a toddler or someone running a country or group of people, like, we're just looking to be believed.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

That's all. Having something that feels true to you and not having someone believe you is a horrible human experience. And you will fight to the death to be believed. And if you're not believed, you will escalate your expression and get more and more intense in your behavior in an attempt to be believed, which usually makes the other party more pissed off and more defensive. And so then, of course, you have to escalate it further. You see this, right? That the picture's a good example. Oh, I don't wanna go to school today. Oh, you're going to school. Oh, I can't. Oh, my knee hurts. Oh, my stomach hurts. It just. Right. And then on the other side is, you know, you're making a big deal out of nothing. You're so dramatic. Right? And so. And this is also true on a politics level, right? I mean, you have to do something in such an extreme way because you're actually just looking for the other side to believe you, which actually, it's funny, we talked about boundaries, but. But validation, people totally misunderstand. Validation of someone else's experience is just saying, I believe that's true for you. It's not saying it's true for Me, it's not saying I believe what you're gonna do next as a result. It's just saying how you're feeling is true for you. And given the feelings in your body, you're the only one who could know. I actually, that's what confidence is. That's what self confidence is. And that's what the confidence we wanna give kids is, just self trust. I am the owner of my feelings. I'm the only one who knows how I feel. Right. And so many times, starting when kids are young, kids kind of tell us how they feel, and we say, no, you don't.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, wow.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

No, you don't. I know how you should feel. You shouldn't be that upset. You shouldn't be that mad. You should feel happy. It's not such a big situation. Which means more behavioral escalation and lower and lower self confidence.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, that's the opposite of curiosity. I'm scared there's something under the bed. You're not scared. You're a big boy. Exactly. Kid's like, okay, I see what you've just said to me, but that hasn't changed. As opposed to, so how do we deal with inconsistencies then? You know, as I was reading through your work, I was thinking to myself about any challenge I experienced as a child. And then I tried to think of it empathetically through my. Through my mom's lens and the fights I'll always have with my mom. Now, we laugh about them, but it's fun to go. I'll say to her, do you ever acknowledge how inconsistent you were? You know, she'd be like, what do you mean? I'm like, one day this would be the rule. Then you would change the rule. And now as an adult, I understand that rules are malleable. As an adult, I understand that an ice cream rule on this day, after the day we've had, is different to an ice cream rule on another day when the day was different. Yeah, but how do you. How do you solve for those inconsistencies as a parent? Because I'm assuming I could be wrong. I'm assuming that it's not militaristic. I'm assuming that not everything is everything all the time. All the time. Sometimes you might buy them a second toy, and sometimes you won't. Sometimes you won't buy them a toy at all. How do you. How do you create consistency in an inconsistent world? As a parent, first of all, dealing.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

With the inconsistencies, I think almost you just shift the focus. It's not the inconsistencies from our childhood that usually bother us. It's actually not having our reality recognized when there was an inconsistency.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, I like that.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Like, you're right. We usually go for ice cream on Fridays, and today I'm in a rush, and that stinks for you. You're probably at school thinking about ice cream. Does that mean we can go for ice cream? No, sweetie. Like, and this is. I kind of said this to you, like, two things are true. We can't go to ice cream today. And I get that that's really disappointing for you. So I think sometimes we encode from our past. Like, oh, yeah, I was so inconsistent, I had to be consistent. No one's perfectly consistent. Real life happens. But when something's different from what we planned or expected, what actually feels bad to us is that nobody believed us and acknowledged that. So I think I'd encourage parents. Yeah, we can't do anything all the time. But when something is different or kind of inconsistent, and your kid probably will have a feeling about that, just acknowledge that reality.

[Eugene]

Yeah. And sometimes I think some of those parenting inconsistencies are caused by situations.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Of course.

[Eugene]

My mom said to us when we were older that all the time that she had said no to us at the store was because she didn't have the money for it. There was no better reason. There was no, this thing is not good for you. This is not what people. She was like, I just didn't want to say to you, there's no money for it. But as we got older, she was able to say, there's no money for it. And then we understood better. And when I was older, I was like, that was very inconsistent of you. One minute it's fine to have Ninja Turtles, the next minute we can't. Yeah, she goes, at the time, I.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Didn'T have, I think, kids, right? No, I don't picture a six year old saying, it's not the inconsistency, it's that you're not validating my feelings. Like, that's a very sophisticated understanding.

[Eugene]

You've never met kids in Japan.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

I've really.

[Trevor Noah]

Those kids are actually. I remember watching them go to school by themselves on the train by themselves. And I was like, wow, this is a whole different level.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

I'm operating in the wrong country. That's the only thing. The only thing I'm taking from this podcast is I've got to go to Japan.

[Eugene]

That's the only true fact about Japan. Throughout this whole entire podcast, there is.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

A but that usually is the core because then we focus on the inconsistency. But actually it's the same thing in a, you know, a partnership. You always alternate whose family you're going to for the holidays. And second year in a row, actually, for some reason, you've got to still go to your partners. And all you want to hear from them is not just, it's not just about the inconsistency. Is, yeah, this is the year we're supposed to go to your family and it didn't work out. And I hear you, that stinks. And it makes sense. You're disappointed and. Right. I think a phrase I love is just, you're right to notice that I try to say that to my kids as much as possible, you know?

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, you're right. I don't text you as much as I did when we first met. You are right. But that's because I know you now and I live with you. Eugene.

Did that heal you?

[Eugene]

Apology accepted.

[Trevor Noah]

Thank you.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

I can just walk away. You guys have some things to figure out.

[Trevor Noah]

That's a perfect moment to talk about, like repair.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

You know, one of the things you really, really talk about in your work is repair. And I, I can't tell you how much I felt healed and seen by your work because I think parents take this, I think people take this for granted. Is the wound being less important than the way we heal the wound?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

You know, let's talk a little bit about, about repair. Like you, you know the anecdote you share where you were screaming at your child, you had lost it. You know, it's like, ah, you know, and, and you, you, you gone and you, you'd said these things and, and then afterwards you realized you had made a mistake, you had done something wrong. You then went and you returned and you said, that wasn't fair. I shouldn't have yelled. You're good. I love you. And you ex, you, you literally talk about seeing your child's shoulders drop.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

And their body language change. And I, I, I'd love to talk know why repair is important and how you would encourage parents to seek some sort of repair with their child and what the ramifications of not doing that would be.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yeah, I mean, I, I do think this is my favorite topic, and I think it's the ultimate relationship strategy. Not just parenting strategy, like you want to get close to anyone closer than you are. Something paradoxical. But repair with them. And it's true adulthood, too. Call up a friend today. Hey, you know, I'm thinking, I Haven't texted you as much recently, and I'm sure that felt bad and I've been busy, and still, I just wanna let you know I see that too. I love you. I'll try to be more in touch, you know, over the next month. So every. Every single human definitely parent does things they're not proud of. It goes back to, like, everyone is a good person who's having a hard time. We all have behavior that doesn't represent our values, that's not in line with how we wish we would have behaved. And I think going back to our childhoods, so many of us encoded struggle and mistake next to shame, blame, and fear that even now with our own kids, we yell and we freeze and we spiral and we tell ourselves the story that comes from the collapse of behavior and identity. I'm a monster. I messed up my kid forever. It's too late. If anyone else saw me, they wouldn't even believe that I have a kid or I'm a parent, right? These. These awful stories. And so one of the things I remember learning in grad school, I remember hearing this, and it just stopped me in my tracks, was that one of the markers of a secure attachment, which is basically the. The attachment we all want to have with our kids, the kinds that brings confidence and lower rates of mental health struggles, all the things. But one of the things that differentiated a secure attachment from insecure or disorganized attachment was repair. I remember the professor talking, and I remember being like, what? Because it wasn't being perfect. It wasn't getting it right all the time. It's just the fact that after you basically yell at your kid or make a mistake, you went back to your kid and you took ownership of your behavior and you offered reconnection. And so if we think about this in a scenario, which I always like to do, because it just makes it more real. So I think what I said in my TED Talk, right, even though it's one of many examples, is it's one of those days. I was at the end of my rope for a million different reasons. My kid whines about dinner. So classic, like, oh, chicken again. And like, I made dinner. And like, how lucky my kid is in this whole story to have homemade dinner. And I yell, right, you're spoiled. You're this. And raise my voice. And it wasn't even a decision I made. It just happened, right? Classic situation. Then my son went into his room. I'm alone in the kitchen.

And now that's already happened. So first, every parent does that there's not one parent who has not been in that situation. If they say they haven't, they're a liar. We don't have to be friends with them. So there's that.

Spread that over here. Okay, so.

There'S that. Okay, so number two, what happens for a kid after a moment like this? Well, our relationship with our kid is very complicated because our kid needs us to survive. Like, I have a very good relationship with my husband, but as an adult, I actually don't need another adult the way a kid needs us. Right. So it's a very different relationship of total dependency. Totally. Right. And so what happens for a kid when the person they depend on for safety becomes the person who scares them? That's a very frenetic experience for a kid. And they get very overwhelmed in their body. Again, happens for every kid. There's no guilt here. It's just something to understand. And then my son essentially in his room has to figure out, how do I get back to feeling safe? I have to. I have to go on with my life. I have to keep going. How do I get back to feeling safe? The best way that that happens is through repair, which I'll get to. But to me, one of the motivators of repair is understanding what a kid does to cope if they don't have repair in that situation. Because we so often think it's yelling at our kid that messes them up. I don't like the term messes them up because it just feels so final. But just for colloquial terms, what messes up a kid isn't being yelled at. It's being yelled at. And then having a parent not repair, it's not the being yelled at. Cause when they don't repair, you can picture my son. He's like, okay. Like, my mom basically just became scary mom. And I'm overwhelmed. But I need my mom. She's my leader. She's my pilot of my plane, essentially. Where'd she go? And so kids basically have two coping mechanisms, mechanisms on their own. Self doubt and self blame. And these will sound familiar as I talk about them because they're the same coping mechanisms. We practice so much as child in our childhood to feel safe and still activate for us in a very unhelpful way in adulthood. So self doubt sounds like that probably didn't happen. No, I don't think I can trust myself. That must not have happened. Yep. Nope. My mom definitely didn't yell at me. All good, put on a smile, go out and continue. So where does this have a legacy in adulthood? I think about so many people who say, well, I'm just someone who makes a big deal out of something. Let me call five of my friends. Do you think this is a big deal that this guy didn't text me back? Would you go out with him again? Like, you can't trust your own data in your body and so you have to essentially rely on lots of external sources because you've engaged in so much self doubt. That was actually a very adaptive coping mechanism early on because if your internal scary experiences and overwhelming experiences weren't spoken to as real, then self doubt at least helped you get back to zero and move on. The other is self blame. I did this. If I was only a better kid, if I was only more on top of my game, I wouldn't have gotten yelled at. And there's a Fairburn quote that I always love and you know it. To me, it's very poignant. Says for a kid, it's better to be a sinner in a world ruled by God than to live in a world ruled by the devil.

[Trevor Noah]

Damn right.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

So in the binary of good and bad, you'd rather as a kid have the bad inside and the good as your parents than to feel like a good kid who has this scary parent who could just scare you at any time. So you take in the bad. Right. Again, works against you in adulthood, which we see in a lot of adults. Anything that happens around them, even in you think about really unhealthy toxic partnerships where sometimes the abused partner. So much self blame. I did this. I set my partner off. If I had only remembered the toilet paper, I wouldn't have gotten screened at. That's a legacy of self blame from scary moments that went unrepaired over and over and over when you had to rely on the only coping mechanism you had.

So what happens when we repair? When you repair with your kid?

[Trevor Noah]

Always.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

When I think about it, I'm a visual person. It's like you're a magician. Like, you get to go back to this moment that felt bad in your kid's body. You get to kind of snatch out any self doubt and self blame. And instead of that chapter of their life ending with and then nice mommy turned into scary mommy, period, you have a new ending. Okay. Sometimes moments happen with people I love that didn't feel good. And when those moments happen, I can expect that person to come back to me, to take responsibility for what they did and to reconnect together. So it usually sounds like, sorry I yelled and this line really matters. I think it's never your fault when I yell.

I'm working on staying calmer, even when I'm frustrated. I love you. And just to get to the naysayers, like, but isn't like, he did complain about dinner, but like, he didn't put on his shoes. Right. That situation leads to my frustration.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

But my ability to manage my frustration, that predated my child's existence. That's not something we're actually talking about. The difference between a feeling and how that feeling gets managed or is kind of as dysregulated as probably I still see in my young children. Right.

[Trevor Noah]

When you put it that way, I realize there's such a fine nuance, like most things in therapy or in the way we heal ourselves. There's such a fine nuance in real repair versus the facade of repair. Because what you just said, I think of now as parents or even as partners where some people, a parent might go to somebody. I'm sorry I yelled, but whenever you do that, you make me so angry. And it means that mommy can't. And Daddy, you know, daddy was really. He had a long day. And when you did that. And then it seems like the repair is less them coming to repair what they've wronged you with. They're basically the cop that's going, I'm sorry I slammed your head on the hood of the car. But you gotta understand, when you walk like that and when you wear that hoodie, it just makes me feel like you might have committed a crime. Then he's like, oh, it's not a repair anymore. Now it's just a calmer way of chastising the child.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

You're teeing me up, so thank you. That's exactly right. And I think what you're actually talking about from let's start with the parents perspective is a misstep often is actually self repair. Okay? Meaning if I don't repair with my myself for yelling at my kid, I'm not gonna be able to repair with my kid. Because even if I go to them, I'm actually basically just asking them to take the blame, or I'm asking them to take care of my guilty feelings. Right? Because I think in that situation, we either say, I'm sorry I yelled. It's okay. Right? You still love me, right? And I picture giving, what in the heck just happened? Now I was overwhelmed. Cause I'm a young kid who got yelled at. And now I have to take care of your adult feelings. And all of that happened Cause we haven't been taught to take a moment. And this would be something I would have to do before I go to my son's room, probably sit in my bathroom alone, take a deep breath, and kind of, again, separate for myself identity from behavior. I'm a good parent who yelled. I'm a good parent who is having a hard time. That moment didn't define me. I am not my latest behavior. I can move on. And if I can't do that for myself, in a way, and I really do feel like when I do this for myself, I have to wait until I feel like something shift in my body, something has to release a little bit. Because if not, when I go to my kid, I'm just asking them to forgive me. Right. Or I'm saying something like, look, I'm sorry I yelled, but if you whined, if you didn't whine about dinner, it would have never happened. And that is definitely not a repair.

[Eugene]

I think there's a difference between asking for forgiveness or taking forgiveness.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, yeah. Damn.

[Eugene]

Yeah, it's a. It's a. I feel like I'm learning so much. I. I put it like this because I know you're a visual person, from what I understand. Correct me if I'm wrong. As a parent, you're almost like NATO. There's a few of you.

[Trevor Noah]

NATO, like the. The treaty?

[Eugene]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay, cool.

[Eugene]

There's a few NATO nations. There's a few of you with lots of power.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

Managing states that don't have as much power. You get to decide you can either be good to them or you can burn them down. Sometimes as a parent, you get to be like the U.N. you say you stand for peace and understanding, but sometimes you step in when your nations have been pulverized and you give aid once in a while. So you say, forgive or it will happen again. Or if you don't forgive, well, we'll be here giving you more grain. Sometimes you find yourself in those tricky positions, and you want to move on. But sometimes when you have. Want to repair. This is how I see it in my mind.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

You're almost like you're the US and there's the Ukraine. The Zelensky is sitting at the White House, and you go, without me.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yes.

[Eugene]

And then he goes, but, but, but. And then you have a chance to repair by calling him back, and he reciprocates by wearing a suit. You guys shake hands, and you make amends and things you've asked, you've. You've made repair. So that's how I look at all those dynamics. I'm like in the real world. That's how they apply to me. And when you say basically adults and world leaders and nation leaders are also just children who have learned tools or did not learn the tools appropriately or not.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

That's right. And look, I'm a pragmatist. So in the dinner situation or in the my kid isn't putting on shoes situation, I do think there are ways to tell your parent, you don't like dinner without complaining the way my son did. And it is helpful to have a kid who puts in their shoes the first time and not the 22nd time. But okay. But I always tell parents just cause I like a blanket rule.

[Trevor Noah]

Right.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

It's true. It is not 20 seconds. Come on. I say wait 24 hours. I don't know why, like a repair is an offering. An offering isn't an offering if you're asking something from someone and it won't and they won't feel it that way. So I'd say wait 24 hours after I say I'm sorry. I've been yelling a lot in the mornings. They've been really hectic. I know they haven't felt good. I'm really working on staying calmer now. For some parents, it's gonna take every ounce of them not to say, but you have to put on your shoes, wait 24 hours. And then you could say to your kid, not as related to yelling, but just more as teammates, hey, mornings have been stressful. We have to get our shoes on at a certain time. Do you have any ideas for, you know, how to make that easier or hey, do you think if we had a chart, do you think if we played a song. I know for me, often it relates to this. I feel like I've been on my phone in the mornings, even though I say it's going to be in my bathroom, I'm going to really try to keep it in the bathroom for the 20 minutes we have. I'm going to be more present. And what I'd ask for you is that, you know, you put your shoes right by the door in the morning and that will make it easier. Usually when you approach kids in that way, you know, versus if you don't put on your shoes some random threat that I'm not keeping anyway, they're more likely to cooperate.

[Eugene]

I've also noticed that as my child got older, I. It was good for me to ask her for help.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yes. Yes.

[Eugene]

Right?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yes.

[Eugene]

Yeah. So sometimes we confuse asking kids for Help with responsibility while, you know, your job is to wash the dishes and that and that and that. But for me, it was, do you know where my charger is? Can you just. Car keys. Do you know where I put them? And they're like, way without me. And then they get to do their responsibilities quicker because they know that at some point they're gonna have to perform a duty that. That only they can perform in my life. And it has nothing to do with them being a good kid or a bad kid.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yeah. Well, I think this even connects to overprotection. And kids like to feel capable. They do. We all like to feel capable. We all like to feel like we have impact in the world. Right. And in this world of doing so much for our kids and making their lives so easy and kind of therefore making them more fragile, in the meantime, we also get in their way of feeling capable. So even. Yeah, where's my charger? Or do you have any ideas for how we can make the morning smoother? Kids like to share ideas. They don't like being dictated to and bossed around, but they do like sharing ideas if we kind of tee them up for it.

[Trevor Noah]

We'll be right back after this short break.

Hey, everybody, it's Rob Lowe here.

[Eugene]

If you haven't heard, I have a.

[Trevor Noah]

Podcast that's called Literally with Rob Lowe. And basically it's conversations I've had that really make you feel like you're pulling.

[Eugene]

Up a chair at an intimate dinner.

[Trevor Noah]

Between myself and people that I admire, like Aaron Sorkin or Tiffany Haddish, Demi Moore, Chris Pratt, Michael J. Fox. There are new episodes out every Thursday, so subscribe, please and listen wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Hey, Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile.

[Trevor Noah]

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[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

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[Trevor Noah]

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[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

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[Trevor Noah]

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Let me ask you what you would say to parents who are very good at repairing but not replacing their behavior. Because I think a lot of people can relate to that. They've had parents where the parent would be very good at repairing. I'm sorry I yelled at you. I'm working on it. And then they would yell again. And then they would I'm sorry I yelled at you. And then they would yell again. What would you say to those parents they're creating in their child that they may not realize?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

So I think there's probably just a couple missing ingredients. So I think repair is a really helpful first step. And again, repairing is always better than leaving the moment not talked about, just like it's right. We don't want to do that with being yelled at. We don't wanna do that with Aunt Sally who has cancer. It's better to talk about the things that are happening for kids. But I think the next ingredient is something that probably does require a little bit more time and reflection and then resources. Okay, why am I yelling? I'm yelling most days at I'm making this up. 6:00pm what's going on for me then? Okay, I don't feel like I have support. I don't know. Am I a single parent? Is my partner not home? Is my partner home and on the couch? And I feel very resentful.

[Eugene]

But.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

But maybe I've never learned how to speak up for my needs. So I have this whole hint and hope dance. That's like my favorite thing I notice. You know, it would be great if you were home for bath time and you kind of hint and you hope and then your partner doesn't even know when bath time is and then they come home late and then you yell at them, and then you end up apologizing. Right. And so what is my pattern? Okay, it's generally at 6, I feel overwhelmed. I always think I ask my partner for help, but my partner never gives me the help. Okay, what's going on there? Right. Or it's something totally different. I always yell when there's whining. Well, why is that? Nobody likes whining, but I don't know. To me, as an example, whining often represents helplessness. So what's my relationship with helplessness? What did I learn as a child? And now we're talking about our triggers. And to me, this is my favorite part of Good Inside is all the re. Parenting stuff.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Right. All the ways our stuff gets acted out. So repair is a starting point. But then I think when we say to our kid, I'm working on staying calmer, even when I'm frustrated. But we do have to have a little bit of a mirror to ourselves and say, am I. Like, is it just, am I. Am I hoping or am I. Yeah, am I learning something? And I think this is also when you asked me in the beginning what Good inside stands for. I mean, parenting is the hardest job in the world. It is the most important job in the world. It's the one that has the biggest impact on our life and the world.

[Trevor Noah]

Right?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

And.

Nobody has given us education. I mean, you have a baby and you leave the hospital. I remember, for me, and this is so much of the mission of Good Inside. I looked around like. Like I thought someone was gonna stop me or, like, hand me something helpful. And I remember, come home with you something. And I remember asking the nurse, do I need anything? And she's been so, well, mean. She was a car seat. I was like, okay, well, I have a car seat. Car seat's not raising my child. Unless you have some new, fancy AI car seat that always knows what to say, you know? And so I think this whole idea, especially for women, of maternal instinct, right? I mean, we don't do that to anyone else. We don't even. We don't do that to CEOs. We don't say, there's a CEO instinct. We love CEOs now have executive coaches and athletes, have trainers, and they have sports psychologists. And we look at those people and think, you're doing a great job because you've surrounded yourself by support. I don't know one investor who'd ever invest in a CEO who says, I just do this naturally. Maybe the quickest way to end a meeting but if you think about parenting, well, the only thing that comes naturally in parenting is how you were parented. That's all instinct is. Instinct is what you've learned until that point. And so if we don't help parents see education and resources and ongoing support as a positive thing, just like we do in every other job, then it's a really hard thing for a parent to change cycles. What are they doing? So I think at good inside, that's really what we stand for. There's moments that come naturally, there's a lot of moments that don't. And just like in other areas, when things don't come naturally, you learn and you practice and you get support and education. That's really what I think parents should have access to as well. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

I can't help thinking about how this ties into what we've spoken about so many times here is community and how it affects every single aspect of our lives. You know, you think about how finances are affected by your community. You think about how your lessons are. This is a perfect example because as we've become more and more of the nuclear family, as people have become more and more isolated, they have fewer people to lean on. There's fewer, like other mothers who are just hanging around you now. It's just like a bunch of strangers and you don't know how much you can reveal or not reveal. And funny enough, it ties into one of the elements that you really, really talk about in your work, and that is shame.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

Because what you just said, if I hear you correctly, sort of goes to the shame that many people will feel in not feeling like they know how to parent. They're ashamed of what they did. I'm ashamed of how I acted towards my kid. I'm ashamed of how they feel about me. I'm ashamed of how they turned out. They take drugs. I'm ashamed of this, you know.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And that shame we can tie back to childhoods.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

You really, really, really hone in on shame. And you try to illuminate the reader's mind as to why that is one of the things we should fight the most against. Talk us through why, like, what is shame doing in a child's mind that we definitely want to prevent from getting into a society?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

So children are driven by attachment. That is the primary evolutionary impact on a child. Meaning that, yes, we need food, shelter, water, but the only way kids get food, shelter, water is through attachment with parents. Right. They can't get it on their own. They can't survive on their own. Right. And so they have to figure out how to stay close to a parent. And so we think about attachment as a relationship, which it is, but attachment is actually. It's a system of proximity. It's actually a system of proximity. Because if you think about attachment way, way, way, way back in the day, if you think about a lot of kids who are helpless and there was some animal in the forest, okay, which kids would survive? The ones that were closest to their parent. Pick up my kid and help them survive. And so kids are always paying attention to what keeps them close to a parent and what kind of leads to distance. And the way we think about this now in 2025, certainly isn't just about an animal in the forest, but what feelings, what parts of me do I get the message, this is allowed. I can stay with you. I still like you when you're feeling this way. And what feelings and experiences do I get the message through? Being hit, through harsh punishment, through the silent treatment, to just go to your room. Right. And never talking about something again. Essentially, the survival related, the evolutionary related message to a kid's body is that feeling, that part of you is dangerous. It's actually dangerous. Okay, so how does this relate to shame? Shame is actually. It starts as a very protective feeling because shame is fear of disconnection. If somebody saw this part of me, I would be unknowable, unlovable, unattachable. And so if you think about shame in a child, how adaptive for a kid, let's say, who learns.

You know, whenever I get really mad now, I get mad, and I don't have skills, so it's unfortunately coming out as hit or I hate you. But that leads to bad things in my family. Okay. Like I get punished or sent away or, you know, left on the street corner, whatever it is. My body will feel shame when I have anger in an attempt to not allow. Yes, to not allow the feeling. Now, fast forward many years, shame, ironically tends to then make a lot of those feelings more explosive. Right. That's what shame really does. There's nothing in adulthood that makes you either as shut down or as triggered and explosive as shame, because it's kind of your body's way of remembering. This is danger. This is 10 out of 10 threat state. You go into fight or flight because you're no longer facing, you know, a barrenness in the woods that would endanger you. You're facing an intense feeling in your body that you learned was kind of met with aloneness.

[Trevor Noah]

Wow.

[Eugene]

Without an external, visible threat to everybody, that's Exactly. People think you're overreacting. Yeah, I feel it. It's.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yeah, that's exactly right. The threat now is it's like inside your own body, which is terrifying. You literally can't run away from something inside your body. Right. And so shame, when you start to. It's interesting, you can start to see it in kids. And some kids, I call them deeply feeling kids, I find to be especially shame prone. They really are. They have big feelings. They have such a fear that their big feelings will also overwhelm others. And so they are so. They're so desperately in need of a parent because of their big feelings, but they're also so fearful that they're gonna overwhelm a parent. So that shame is so. Which is why you'll see these truly animalistic meltdowns. These kids will scratch, they will growl, they will hiss during meltdowns. So common. I know there are listeners thinking they're the only ones. They are not.

[Eugene]

Wow.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

These are the kids who, when they trip in front of their friends, they blame other people. They blame their parents. Any adult either. Also. Who blames people.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

For things that those people clearly didn't do. That's a sign of shame. They're kind of saying, this feeling I'm feeling can't be mine. And so you had to have done it to me. Because it's so overwhelming and so scary in my own body that like I can't kind of accept its reality.

[Trevor Noah]

It almost sounds like a manifestation of isolation.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yes. You know, that's what it is. Aloneness is the enemy. Right. It's not so much a feeling. It's feeling plus aloneness that overwhelms us. Going back to childhood because we couldn't survive alone. And so aloneness. Yes. Or the fear of aloneness is what evokes shame.

[Eugene]

I find that what helped with me in the early stages of being alone with my daughter was reassurance. It was always important for me to tell her I'm not going anywhere. And when she was young, I would tell her, when I'm coming back, if I'm going somewhere, then I'd find that she'd be more relaxed and more independent. It helped so much. It opened up, up. Yeah. And other people will be like, but aren't you scared? She be like, no, he told me he is definitely coming back.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yes.

[Eugene]

Cuz that abandonment is a huge thing. And without it being acknowledged and the reassurance. And you must never get tired to reassure.

[Trevor Noah]

But then you had to come back.

[Eugene]

Yeah, yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

No, but that's What I mean is like, I think.

[Eugene]

Absolutely.

[Trevor Noah]

I think that's where some people don't realize the only thing worse than not reassuring is false reassurance. Yes, I'll be back. Then they don't come back. Then you're like, well, I guess I don't trust the world.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yes, that's right. I literally don't trust the world because you coming back is my world as a kid. And it's why kids have such visceral memories of being the last kid picked up at school. Because it's such a true existential threat. It really is. Right.

[Trevor Noah]

You know what was funny for me was when I wasn't picked up from school, my shame wasn't that I wasn't picked up funny enough. I felt ashamed about how the people perceived my parents. But then I still carried that shame. It's amazing how shame.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

How you remember that.

[Trevor Noah]

No, this was when I was, I don't know, 10, 12, somewhere there. But. But it's an interesting one where it's like, you know, that's how powerful shame can be sometimes. Shame isn't only about yourself directly. You can carry the shame on behalf of the parents.

[Eugene]

That.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. Because I went, oh, I. I don't want. I don't want to them to think that my mom doesn't care about me because. You know what I mean? Between me and my mom, it was just like, all right, my mom didn't come genuinely between me and my mom. But then the shame actually came from the other thing. It was them going, did your mom leave you? Did your mom forget you? And you're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, that. That would never. No, that. You know what I mean? And it's interesting how kids can even hold that level of shame on your behalf.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

It's like a different level of aloneness. Cause you're saying I don't want to be seen as the only one.

[Trevor Noah]

Exactly.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Who had a parent when all these other. I don't know what it was. Hyper present parents. Oh, is your mom not here? And then again, it's a form of aloneness. Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, Just that community. Just that it branches into the world of lying that you were talking about. And that's something I think a lot of parents would love. Clarity on. How do you deal with lying? Because, you know, there's like a wide gamut. There's some parents who just go, like, you lied to me. And it is the end of our journey as parents and children. You know, there's like that element. I've seen some parents who are like, don't you ever lie to me. You lied to me. And now and then I've seen some parents who go like, oh, you lied to me. Well, I, Good luck. And they almost, they retreat in a different way, you know, and then there's, then there's parents who go like, you are a liar. You don't have a true bone in your body, you lying liar of lioness.

[Eugene]

As you can see, Trevor was raised by New York City detectives.

[Trevor Noah]

No, but I, I, you know why I love, I love, I love observing this because I, I, I, I, I often observe how the child is responding to these things, you know, so one of, one of my best friends, I remember saying this to her. Cause she was saying, like, her child never lied to her. Then, like, one day did. And she was like, I can't believe you lied to me. It was this whole thing. And I said something to her based on my experience as a child. I said, look, I'm not a therapist. I have no professional expertise. But I said, as a child, As a professional child, I lived my whole young life as a child.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

As a child.

[Trevor Noah]

I have many years of being a child. I said, do yourself a favor. Next time you're gonna ask your kids something that they're gonna get into trouble for, said give them time to answer you. So I said, ask her. Go like, hey, did you eat the thing that I said you weren't supposed to eat? Don't answer me now. Go away and think about your answer, but come back when you're ready to answer me. And she was like, why? And I said to her, because I know for me as Trevor, sometimes the answer I was giving was just the answer in the moment. Because I was just like, of course there's the right answer.

[Eugene]

No.

[Trevor Noah]

And it's like, no. And I'm like, ah, geez. Well, now I don't want to be a liar, so I can't go back now I've got to lie more to get out of the lie. So let's talk a little bit about lying.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

I love this topic. And I actually just put up something on Instagram, which, I mean, like, why I want my kid to lie to me when they're young. Right? I think so many.

[Trevor Noah]

You want your kid to lie to you?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yes, definitely. When they're young. I want to figure this out with them when they're 7 and 8, not when they're, I don't know, 16, 17, and 18. The stakes are a lot higher. Right? And so, So a couple things. All the examples of the Responses, all of them were different versions of collapse of curiosity. Right. It's just really interesting that what the hardest thing to do is, is to say why. Sometimes we say why is an accusation. Why would you lie to me? That's not a question. It's just an accusation with a question mark. But why?

[Eugene]

Truly inquisitive.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Why?

[Eugene]

Accusatory.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yeah, why would a kid lie? And I actually find for parenting, some of my best ways of understanding my kid before talking to them is just to ask myself that question. Well, why would I lie to someone I love and respect? Because parents often think it's because they don't respect me. It's like the most selfish interpretation. Like, I don't know, if my husband said, did you pick up my prescription for me? And I forgot. The idea that I would lie because I don't respect my husband is like so absurd.

[Trevor Noah]

Like, look at this loser.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Like, dude, look at this easy loser.

[Trevor Noah]

What a dumbass. What a dumbass. I'mma lie to him.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

This dumbass.

[Eugene]

I love your plausible deniability character that.

[Trevor Noah]

You put on it.

[Eugene]

I wouldn't burn it. Then you come back. But I was saying to him, oh man, I wanted.

[Trevor Noah]

Did you get my prescription? Man, watch what I'm going to do to this dumbass. Ah, the pharmacy was closed, you stupid ass dookie dumbass.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

I'm tired.

[Eugene]

I love your alter ego.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

It's so cool. It's really a good one.

[Eugene]

For an hour. I want you dead. But I'm picking up your prescription.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh man.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

But how many times do you hear parents interpret their kids bad behavior through the lens of disrespect? It's actually contempt. It's absurd. It's never true. Right.

[Trevor Noah]

I wonder how much of that comes from like colonialism and empirical structure. Like not like, not like black, white, anything. I'm just saying structures where they were told like the king wanted respect. And then we all, as the people and the peasants throughout time have gone. The respect is the thing that we all want.

[Eugene]

Yeah, but I think it's contempt, right? It's people going, who do you think I am? Yeah. To do that to me.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Well, I, yeah, I think it is just passed on. That's what we were told. Yeah, we acted out. You know, these are not our words originally. No babies. Like, I think I'm lied to because.

I found her again, my alter. Okay, so why do kids lie? Why would I lie to my husband in that situation? Well, most of all, I would lie ironically because I felt bad and I don't even wanna face the Reality myself. That's why most of us lie. We don't want to see the truth of the thing we did because then we'd have to feel all the feelings again. And we don't really wanna do that, right? So, number one, kids lie because they don't wanna face the truth and all the messy feelings around it. Number two, and this is really important, especially for young kids. For young kids, the line between wish and reality is much murkier than it is for adults, right? Like, oh, I hear my kids, right? I hear my kids say, I went to Disneyland. I went to Disneyland. My kid's lying. They've never. There she is.

[Trevor Noah]

I love it.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Anymore.

[Trevor Noah]

I never went to Disney. What?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

That's so funny.

[Eugene]

I'm gonna use my inside voice. Don't worry, you can fill the contact.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

I don't know if I got. I don't know if it's safe.

[Eugene]

You're safe. I'm joking you.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

But my kid is talking to friends and wishes they went to Disneyland. Of course they do. Because they wish they still had a grandma who is alive and. And that wish is something they're playing out. Or all their friends went to Disneyland. And it's not. It's not to say it's not a lie. It almost doesn't matter. It's a wish.

[Trevor Noah]

It's imagination.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

It's a wish. Nine is so.

Thin and so. And then the other thing that's really important, going back to attachment. Attachment drives kids primary evolutionary force. So if I'm looking at my dad or my mom and they're like, did you take money from my drawer? And they have like a nest cam that like, shows them that this happened. So it's another thing I say to parents is beyond. Give them time. Never ask a kid or an adult a question you know the answer to. If you want to know what's disrespectful. Why would you want to catch your kid being bad? It's just such a bad setup, right? I like a bad setup. But let's say I didn't have a nest cam and I thought my kid, right? Because if I did, I should just say, I saw you take money from my drawer. Let's talk about it. But let's say I didn't. Back to attachment. Kids are wired to try to preserve attachment with us. And so if in a moment they know intuitively, if I tell the truth, my attachment, even temporarily, is gonna be threatened. They will lie to you every time, ironically, to preserve the attachment for as long as possible. You can't Beat evolution. So they are gonna say no. And you're saying, well, I have a video, it wasn't me. And then it's like disrespect and do they think I'm stupid? It's, it's actually hits me in the heart every time. Like they're actually trying to stay close to you. Right. Which makes think, well, what do we do when a kid lies to us? Right. We have to first manage our emotions. But to me the question, even though it's a harder question, is, well, what's getting in my, what's getting in my kid's way of telling me the truth? What are they so scared of? What have they already learned? Maybe it's how narrow of a version does my kid think they have to be? Right? Oh, I have one kid. Maybe it's not your brother. Who's the smart kid? Who's the A student? Oh, I don't have to worry about you. You're the valedictorian and I just failed my math test. Well, you better bet I'm gonna, I'm gonna lie to my parents to try to preserve this very narrow identity of who I have to be. Or if I think telling my parents about taking money from their drawer is going to lead to a four week punishment. Yeah, I'm going to be too scared. Right. And so I think those are the reasons why kids lie. We can get more into, you know, what is the line between, or what is between punishing and permissiveness when kids do lie. But I think the understanding of lying gets us, you know.

[Eugene]

You know, what I'm realizing now is I think for the most part as parents, we've got it all wrong.

The children are doing most of the emotional lifting of keeping up us physically close together. They depend on it evolution wise. They need you to understand even that lie is an attempt to keep you here.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yes. I think that's so beautiful. Yes. They, they have to keep you close. They have to keep us close. They are crying by any means. That's why they cling to you at night even though you're like, I have to go to sleep because they're scared. They separate from you for 12 hours at night, longer than they do when they go to school with the lights on with friends and teachers. Right. So they're always oriented. Right. By attachment. And so my kids now are 8, 10 and 13. Right. And so why are those good ages kind of to go through lying? Which first of all, it's obviously already happened, but I'll tell you the story. So My youngest is my least people pleasing child. Good for him. Later in life. Challenging early on. And so a couple years ago, we were doing a puzzle on a weekend. And he's a kid who likes to feel very capable. And so he was trying to help us with the puzzle. He was probably like four or five at the time. And it was just. It was very hard. Okay. And he was kind of playing it a little bit independently when we were working on it for a bit. We all had lunch. I come back, like a quarter of the puzzle is destroyed and the pieces are gone. There was nobody else in our apartment. Okay. And I knew it was him. I didn't have a video, but I just knew it. And I know him well enough. He probably went. He saw it. I brought up all of these, ugh. I'm not as much part of the family. I'm not capable. I hate this. Well, what can I do? I can kind of temporarily get rid of my feelings by just destroying the situation that's delivering them. Okay. So I asked him, right? Cause I really didn't know. Hey, is there any way you know where those puzzle pieces are? Nope. Nope. I have no idea. Idea. I knew it, right? But I. I couldn't prove it. I didn't do anything. I didn't do anything. And it's funny because my husband, I know he'd be okay with me saying this, definitely grew up in a different way than I did. And he's like, what? Punish. What? What? How are we punishing him? What's the punishment? How severe? He can't do this, right? So disrespectful. This is such a normal reaction. And I just kind of knew. Just, let's wait. Okay? So put him to bed. That night.

I said, I want to tell you something. I don't think I've ever told you this before.

When I was seven, my sister had some stickers. She had some stickers, and I really, really wanted them. And my mom wouldn't get me my own, and I wanted them. And do you know what I did? He's like, you probably asked for them nicely or something like that. And I said, said, no. I took them. And not only did I take them, I hid them. I took them and I hid them. And the next day my mom said to me, becky, did you take your sister's stickers? I said, do you know what I told her? He goes, I don't know. I said. I said, nope, nope, didn't take them. Mm. Mm.

And then I just kind of voiced over. I really wanted them. I kind of wanted to be a part of it. Then I just took them. And then I actually felt so bad. And so she asked me, but I felt too bad to tell her the truth, and then felt like I couldn't tell her the truth because I didn't tell her the truth. And it was just so, so bad. And.

Anyway, what book do you want to read? And I just moved on again. I didn't ruin the moment by saying.

I told my husband this, and I just, like, I can't explain it. I felt in the moment like there was something happening, but he didn't give me any real sign. And I was like, just, we're not going to punishment mode yet. Let's just wait. I swear my life. A couple days later, he just brings me a bag of puzzle pieces, Just brought them to me. Me crying.

And I don't think a punishment was needed. We ended up talking about what it's like to be the third kid in the family seeing something that you want to be part of and that you can't be part of. How most people, when they see that, have lots of thoughts that aren't so nice. And actually having those thoughts and what you want to do is kind of called urges. And we all have urges. And urges aren't problems, but we can learn to kind of talk to our urges. And frankly, there's gonna be a lot of times being the youngest in the family that he was gonna wanna do things with us that he couldn't do, and we were gonna figure out those things together. And so I'm not trying to say. I hear myself saying, this is not. There's definitely times I'm like, you lied to me. You know, that happens, too. But.

Our kids are. They're good inside. They're good kids who are having a hard time. And we've had such a long legacy of seeing their struggles as a sign of who they are instead of a sign of what they might need, that it feels so countercultural. And then we have words so permissive, so soft. It's actually a much more resilient, gritty way of interacting with a kid because you can actually teach them and help them better understand the very situations that are happening when they're young, so that they actually don't engage in that exact same behavior when they're older, When.

[Trevor Noah]

When you tell that story. I can't help think back to how many moments I felt relief and connection when I discovered that my parents was as imperfect as I was in that moment.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

And going back to lying, going Back to shame, going back to discipline, all of these ideas.

It feels like there's an undercurrent. And there's a thread here where one of the main things you're advocating for in being a good parent is making sure that your child doesn't feel like they are alone in their existence. I mean, you even do this for parents. You're saying, hey, you might be listening. You might have a kid like this. In those moments, you then feel less ashamed, less alone, less out of control because you are now part of something. And so I think parents make that mistake. Oftentimes they'll. They will tell their kids who they wish their kids to be because of who they wish they were or who they wish they are, but they will oftentimes neglect to tell their child how much they say this, share the similarity of being imperfect, and they don't understand what that does to them. You know what I mean? It just, it just opens your world up. I remember when I was young, my. My. My mom was. She was like really angry with me one day because my report card came and I'd done terribly in math. I'd failed, failed in math. She was so angry. And we're with my grandmother this day and my mom's busy and she's like, angry. She's like, you know, this child, he didn't study, he didn't do this. And then my grandma was like, she's like, what? What happened? What happened? She's like, oh, he failed his math. And. And then, and then my grand said, she's like, ooh, like mother, like son. And then my mom was like, what? Which mother? What are you talking about? And then my grandson, she's like, oh, you did terribly in. You were always failing subjects in school. Then my mom was like, me mom was like, I'm an A student. And yes, later on in tertiary education and courses, she's. I mean, you can't be. But in that. And she had completely. And no joke, she had forgotten that. And she's like, what are you talking? And my grand then turned to me. She's like, like your mother.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Ha ha ha ha.

[Trevor Noah]

Never wanted to do homework, always failing her math. And I remember like turning, looking at my mom and I was just like, it took rooters. I was like, yeah, I literally.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Well, well, well.

[Trevor Noah]

And but you know what was wonderful? Look, my mom, to her credit, in that moment, she laughed. She didn't know she. But what. What connected us there and forevermore, by the way, she never judged me in the same way she'd Ask me, like, what can you improve?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

What can you.

[Trevor Noah]

But I realized how it made me feel. I used to be ashamed of failing, and now I wore it as, like, a badge of honor. And I know it sounds crazy, but, like, people like, ah, your math mark. I'd be like, yeah, my family, we not so good at math.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Not good at the math.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, we're like. We don't know how to count. Me and my mom, you know, we just do the thing. And then I would even try, like, when I'd come home, I'd even go, hey, look, I got better than you've ever gotten. I got. Now it, like, motivated me. And I think in your story, what's beautiful, there is a. Like, he beat you in that story. He got to do the thing that you never did.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

And what you said. I used to be ashamed. That's what it. Alone. That's what it meant.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

I used to feel like I was the only one feeling like the only one who is shame. And I think from an animal defense response perspective, we know what we talk a lot about. Fight or flight. Right? Fight or flight. But those are the animal defenses that make us active. Right. Freeze, submit, and play dead are also three animal defense states. And shame brings a freeze state. You can't change if you're frozen. It's literally the opposite. And so as long as you feel like the only one, you are frozen. You could only if you wanted to get help in math or work on math, if you feel like you're not the only one who.

[Trevor Noah]

Right, Right.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

And so telling your kids stories. And I saw dad on my last book tour, and he said, you know, I heard you in my head this morning. My son would not put on his shoes. Classic to go to school. And I tried all the things, right? And he said, and I heard my own dad in my head. The yelling, the threatening. And he's like, I even said to my son, I'm gonna get fired from my job. It wasn't true. And we're, like, never gonna go on vacation, right? You're just. And then he's like, I heard your voice. And this is. I took a deep breath, and this is what I said to my son.

You know, when I was your age, there were mornings I didn't want to go to school.

And he said, I kid you not. My son just looked at me because now there's a connection. He said there were, and he just wanted to hear more. And as I kept telling him more of this story, which obviously mirrored his struggle. Yeah, he was fine. With me putting on his shoes. We got the shoes on. I kept telling the story all the way until the drive to school. Right. It's like our kids are almost screaming in their behavior. Just tell me I'm not the only one. And once that happens, it might not get you 100% of the way, but it's like the door that has to open for the room of all the other good things.

[Eugene]

And I guess from what you say, I'm kind of picking up that sometimes all the skills that we lack and all the tools that we don't have will manifest themselves in different ways in our parenting. For example, guilt and overcompensating. If you don't want to apologize, you'll overcompensate as a way of showing how sorry you are, but you're actually making the situation worse because you're not imparting tools to your child that they can later as emotions use to deal with situations.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Absolutely.

[Trevor Noah]

You know, when we talk about this, there's some core tenets I'm realizing in good inside and what you're getting to. One is community. You know, and we take for granted that community literally starts at home.

[Eugene]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

If a child feels like they are part of a family and that family will always be a part of them, it means they get to interact with themselves and the world differently because they feel like there's always home base. Yeah. You know, they're not worried that it can go away. It's always there, regardless of their action, because who they are is always accepted. And the other one I keep, keep hearing you talk about is like truth and truth, not in the way that we think about it, but in the way that it's actually expressed. When a parent tells a child that they too lied and they too stole and they too made a mistake and they too, failed, you're telling the truth of who you are. And then the child then gets to process you. Because there's nothing more isolating than feeling like you're the only failure in your family, the only person who's ever stolen, the only person who's ever lied. But the truth literally sets you free. And I wonder if you, like, like, teach parents that or how you teach them to express the truths that are not readily apparent. And what I mean by that is an example I. I can think of is parents will say, hey, Eugene, did you. Did you steal mommy's favorite thing? Eugene, did you. Did you take daddy's tool? You can tell me you won't get in trouble. Then Eugene's like, okay, I Took it. Then they like trouble.

[Eugene]

You piece of.

[Trevor Noah]

You ready for trouble now? And I go, that's a lie. I think a lot of parents don't realize this. And I think even in relationships, as people go on, they don't realize this. I've seen this in like literally in relationship therapy as well. Like couples.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

People go like, they lied and then the other person's like, oh, no, no. But you don't understand that you're also telling a lie.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Cuz you've said to your kid, tell me this, and we're good. They tell you and then they're not good.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

So how do you, how do you. What are the tools that parents can use to be more truthful in the way that they both respond or interact with their kids in all of these situations?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Well, I think probably the first kind of tool, even though I love a good strategy or script, our best tools for anything in life is our mindset. Right. Because the mindset is how you're thinking about something. Or in a way, it's the glasses you wear.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

The glasses you wear to see a situation has more impact. Impact than anything you're gonna do or say. Because as long as I'm thinking about a situation in one way, I can't use a certain strategy or a script because I'm locked into that first interpretation. So to me, the first mindset kind of difference to notice is whether I'm in a least generous interpretation mindset or a most generous interpretation mindset. And we all, me too, we have lgi, I call it that comes naturally. My kid hits and immediately, right. I'm like, oh, my kid's a sociopath. They're never gonna have friends, they're gonna be in jail, they're three. Meanwhile. Right. Least generous interpretation.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Versus most generous interpretation. Okay. I have a good kid who is overwhelmed. I have a good kid who doesn't have the skills to manage anger. So I think that's one. And the other mindset that I work with parents on all the time is trying to check in and noticing whether you're looking at your kid as a teammate are the enemy. And least generous interpretation always casts our kid as the enemy. Right. But when you start to see your kid as a teammate, kind of like a good coach. Right. If you're a coach and you have a player who's missing layups in every game, even though in theory they know how to make layups, it's the same thing. No coach these days. Can you imagine a youth basketball coach? What's wrong with you go to your room until you can make a layup. And the parents are like, I love that coach. That coach. Which doesn't take bullshit from anyone. You know, you're like, what. What are they doing in their room? You want a coach who maybe pulls the kid out of a game, Maybe they're not playing? Well, that's kind of the boundary. And then says, let's get into the gym early tomorrow. And you know what? A good coach would probably say, I had a big championship game when I missed a lot of layups, too. I mean, that's. And we're gonna work on it, and I believe in you, and we're gonna figure this out together. And what's so interesting to me about this, that is, I don't know one parent who would say, that coach is so permissive. Yeah. That coach is so soft. Extra time with that kid. It's basically reinforcing bad behavior. I mean, it's so laughable how we've revolutionized how we think about being the CEO of a company or a professional sports coach and how still parents who see bad behavior as a sign, kids need a certain type of extra help that seem as soft and permissive. And I think when you have a sense of boundaries and being on the same team and teaching kids skills, leading with the truth becomes easier because you're in a mindset where you actually have a system that actually kind of holds together.

[Trevor Noah]

I love that you. You bring that up. Because.

That idea, I think, can be mirrored directly in society and how we think of punishing people or how we think of. Of justice.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

It's really fascinating how many people will say on, like, a societal level, we need to reform our prisons. We need to reform. We need to give people chances. We need to, like, make them better. But then in their homes, they treat their kids like criminals.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Absolutely.

[Trevor Noah]

Do you know what I mean? Like, their kid has a criminal record. Something's missing. I know who always steals in this house. Then you're like, wait, your kid's got a criminal record in their own house. What are you doing? Do you know what I mean?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And it's so interesting that this is where it all begins, is if we as a society can begin from a place where we go, you have chances. We're going to give you options. We're going to show you that, you know, like, a judge can just say, hey, I actually shoplifted once. I never went to jail. I'm gonna give you a chance and prove me wrong. Prove me wrong. You know how Many times I've seen that story go on to be a person who becomes extremely successful. All they got was a chance.

[Eugene]

Give him a shot.

[Trevor Noah]

If I give you a criminal record and if I give you a chance, you're the same person. The difference is one of you gets the opportunity to become the person that I think you could be. And, you know, as we sort of wrap up and I think about all of the lessons that you've taught us here, I want to know why you've honed in on the parent and their goodness as well. Because this is such a beautiful element that I didn't see coming, honestly. And yet it became the most important in all of the work we get into. You talk about generous, less generous, and more generous.

It sparked a memory of probably my favorite philosopher, Elaine de Botton, who said. He said, in his opinion, love. You know, when people go, what is love? He says, love is processing somebody through the most generous lens possible. That's all it is. Processing through the most generous lens possible. And then I found myself thinking, while reading your book and thinking about parenting, why is it that people will often be the most generous with a pet?

It doesn't matter what a pet does. They'll go, they chewed my shoes. It's because I left them at home for too long. You know, oh, they peed on the carpet. It's because I made them nervous and there were fireworks. And you'll see people, they go like, oh, but they're a rescue. You must understand all the things. The reason they bit you is not because of them. It's because of how you move towards them. And this is a beautiful, generous way to see them. Yes, but then with their kid, you'll go, why did your kid do that? Ugh. Good question. Little piece of shit. I don't know why they do anything. And you do something that's so beautiful at the end of the book and in your work, you flip the lens on the parent and you go, I need you to remember that you are good inside. Why is that so important? And what are you trying to teach parents of children who are trying to see the good in their kids?

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Well, I mean, that's. I think that's why I find parenting to be such a compelling topic, is because at once we're talking about a kid and a parent. You can't help your kid if you're not doing some type of internal work. And anything that's new feels really uncomfortable. That's our body's way of saying, this is new. I don't really Have a circuit for this. It's kind of like skiing down a ski slope that's never had a track. Right. That would feel really awkward and uncomfortable. And for most of us in human relationships, compassion is very new. And so new is registered as dangerous, I think so. Compassion feels dangerous. I see it when I talk about kids behavior through a more generous lens. Parents. Oh, so you're. So you're saying my kid's just gonna be like this forever? Like compassion feels dangerous because it's new. And so in the name of, yes, both helping kids, but also helping adults, we have to start with the adult. Like, I just firmly believe parents. Every parent loves the heck out of their kid. And every parent is doing the best they can with the resources they have. And if they want to do something differently or they want to break cycles or have some type of intergenerational change. Intergenerational change doesn't start by changing your interaction with your kid. It starts by changing your interaction with yourself. You have to change something internally to give out something new. Right. I feel like there's a visual, it's a math equation of that. And so, yes, I think being more of the parent you want to be to your kid probably starts with recognizing the good inside yourself.

[Trevor Noah]

Dr. Becky, this was as wonderful as I hoped it would be. Thank you so much for the work you do.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Thank you.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. Because I think all of us take for granted that every single person we meet in the world is the way they are, oftentimes because of how they were parented. And if all of us got the hugs, the recognition, the repair, the trust and the reassurance that we deserve, the world might be a much, much, much better place. So thank you very much for joining us. This was amazing.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Thank you.

[Trevor Noah]

This is really great. Thank you.

[Eugene]

A piece of shit twice.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Oh, good. Is that more than the average?

[Eugene]

It's never happened before.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Oh, wow.

[Trevor Noah]

This episode is presented by Whole Foods Market. Whole Foods Markets has everything you need for the holidays. Whether you're a guest or hosting the big dinner, Whole Foods Market has convenient and cost friendly finds that'll delight everyone at your table. Plus great gift ideas, all of which follow the Whole Foods Market's strict ingredient standards. Shop for everything you need at Whole Foods Market, your holiday headquarters.

What now with Trevor Noah is produced by DayZero Productions in partnership with SiriusXM. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah Sanaziam and Jess Hackle. Rebecca Chain is our producer. Our development researcher is Marcia Robiou. Music mixing and mastering by Hannis Brown Random other stuff by Ryan Hardeeth. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next week for another episode of what now.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Hey everybody, Ted Danson here to tell.

[Trevor Noah]

You about my podcast with my longtime.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

Friend and sometimes co host Woody Harrelson. It's called where everybody knows your name and we're back for another season.

[Trevor Noah]

I'm so excited to be joined this season by friends like John Mulaney, David Spade, Sarah Silverman, Ed Helms, and many more.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

You don't want to miss it.

[Trevor Noah]

Listen to where everybody knows your name.

[Dr. Becky Kennedy]

With me, Ted Danson, and Woody Harrelson sometimes. Wherever you get your podcasts. Did you know you can opt out of winter with VRBO? Save up to $1,500 for booking a month long stay with thousands of sunny homes. Why subject yourself to the cold? Just filter your search by monthly stays and save up to 1, $500. Book now at verbo. Com.