Everybody seemingly has some sort of problem they’re trying to “parent” out of their kids—they aren’t responsible, they won’t listen, they’re disrespectful—but what if every problem was caused by a few simple things? How would that change your approach to parenting and other relationships?
In this episode, Dr. Becky Kennedy shares insights on your relationship with your partner, regulating your emotions, setting screen time boundaries, and how parents get in the way. Almost everything she shares applies not just to parenting but to every relationship in your life—with your partner, your kids, your colleagues, and your customers.
You’ll learn how to frame things differently, repair a relationship after a heated argument, the three steps to regulate emotions, the key to unlocking the next level in all your relationships, and how to identify the core problems that trickle turn messy situations and how to fix them.
Available now: YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Transcript
Dubbed the “The Millennial Parenting Whisperer” by TIME Magazine, Dr. Kennedy is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be. She also hosts “Good Inside with Dr Becky,” on Apple Podcasts.
Here are a few highlights from the episode:
A boundary is something we tell someone else we will do, and it requires the other person to do nothing.
People think about confidence as feeling good about yourself, and I think that could not be further from what confidence is…[C]onfidence isn’t feeling like [you’re] the best at something. It’s feeling like it’s okay to be you when you’re not the best at something, and it’s trusting yourself in those moments.
I actually really think mental health is not about getting those voices out of our car—they’re there; they’re not going anywhere—but is actually about just talking to them when they’re in the passenger seat to ensure that they don’t take over the driver’s seat.
One of my favorite emotion regulation skills to teach adults is something I call “AVP,” and it’s like the simplest thing and has the most profound impact on people. So AVP stands for “acknowledge, validate, permit.”
Understanding how someone feels in a deep way is not at all the same thing as agreeing or saying, “I would feel that way, too” or saying that some way is to feel is right in the world in some grand way. It’s just understanding.
Kids cannot self-regulate with phones, period. I would also say adults cannot self-regulate with phones. They are stronger than us.
Any good relationship comes from both being connected to someone else and being connected to yourself.
