Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

by Becky Kennedy

Behavior is a clue to what a child—and, often, an entire family system—is struggling with.

Behaviorism privileges shaping behavior above understanding behavior. It sees behavior as the whole picture rather than an expression of underlying unmet needs. This is why, I realized, these “evidence-based” approaches felt so bad to me—they confused the signal (what was really

going on for a child) with the noise (behavior). After all, our goal is not to shape behavior. Our goal is to raise humans.

And at the heart of these principles is the idea that by understanding the emotional needs of a child, parents can not only improve behavior but transform how the entire family operates and relates to one another.

are “being easy” on them, but rather you are framing their behavior in a way that will help them build critical emotion regulation skills for their future—and you’re preserving your connection and close relationship along the way.

This idea underlies so much of my parenting advice: We don’t have to choose between two supposedly oppositional realities. We can avoid punishment and see improved behavior, we can parent with a firm set of expectations and still be playful, we can create and enforce boundaries and show our love, we can take care of ourselves and our children. And similarly, we can do what’s right for our family and our kids can be upset; we can say no and care about our kids’ disappointment.

Building strong connections relies on the assumption that no one is right in the absolute, because understanding, not convincing, is what makes people feel secure in a relationship.

Parents have the job of establishing safety through boundaries, validation, and empathy. Children have the job of exploring and learning, through experiencing and expressing their emotions. And when it comes to jobs, we all have to stay in our lanes. Our kids should not dictate our boundaries and we should not dictate their feelings.

Parents express boundaries with both our words and our bodies. When I say “bodies,” I’m not suggesting you use physical force to assert power or intimidate—hurting or scaring your child is never okay. Never never never. But physicality, sometimes, is needed to keep our child safe. If I tell my daughter she cannot hit her brother, I may also need to hold her wrist to prevent the hitting

our “memories” from early childhood are in fact more powerful than the memories we form in our later years; the way parents interact with kids in their early years forms the blueprint they take with them into the world.

example, a young girl is constantly told to “not be so sensitive,” she will learn early on that her feelings are “wrong” and push people away. If a father repeatedly tells his son to stop crying, that son will associate vulnerability with rejection, even if, later in life, he can’t explicitly recall those memories.

Because the safer and more secure a child feels with his parents, and the wider the range of feelings he can feel within that relationship, the safer and more secure his adult relationships will be.

The more children feel they can depend on a parent, the more independent they can be. Our confidence that someone will understand us, not judge us, and support us, comfort us when things go wrong—this is what allows kids to develop into adults who are assertive, confident, and brave.

As psychologist Richard Schwartz, the creator of IFS, writes, “Children have a developmental tendency to translate experience into identity: I am not loved becomes I am unlovable, and a bad thing happened to me becomes I am bad.” In other words, kids take experiences with their caregivers and infer larger messages about who they are.

Parenting is not for the faint of heart. It’s incredibly demanding, but also—and perhaps more important—it requires a huge amount of self-reflection, learning, and evolving.

Two things are true: the brain wires early, and it has a remarkable capacity to rewire. Neuroplasticity refers to the brain’s ability to relearn and transform itself when it recognizes the need for adaption.

Since parents are the most significant fixture in a child’s environment, perhaps it should come as no surprise that when a parent changes, so too does a child’s wiring. Research has established that, oftentimes, when kids are struggling, it is not therapy for the child himself but coaching or therapy for the parent that leads to the most significant changes in the child.

It’s not your fault that your child is struggling. But it is your responsibility, as the adults in the family system, to change the environment so that your child can learn and grow and thrive. Our kids’ brains wire in response to our interactions with them. We

remember: as a parent, you are your child’s role model. When your child sees you as a work in progress, he learns that he, too, can learn from his struggles and take responsibility when he acts in a way he isn’t proud of.

“Good parents don’t get it right all the time. Good parents repair.”

Building resilience is about developing the capacity to tolerate distress, to stay in and with a tough, challenging moment, to find our footing and our goodness even when we don’t have confirmation of achievement or pending success.

Here’s my answer: Happiness is not my ultimate goal for my own kids. Unhappiness certainly isn’t my goal for them, but here’s a deep irony in parenting: the more we emphasize our children’s happiness and “feeling better,” the more we set up them up for an adulthood of anxiety. Setting happiness as the goal compels us to solve our kids’ problems rather than equip them to solve their own.

It would be pretty wonderful if parenting was driven by this one goal: “I want my child to be able to cope with whatever the world throws her way. I want her to feel supported in distress when she’s younger so she can support herself when she’s older.”

the evidence around behavior change can make us lose sight of what actually matters in favor of what is immediately observable.

And shame activates the ultimate fear for a child, the idea “I am bad inside, I am unworthy, I am unlovable, I am unattachable . . . I will be all alone.” Given that children’s survival is dependent on attachment, their bodies read shame as: “Ultimate danger! Ultimate danger!” There is nothing as dysregulating to a child as a set of emotions or sensations or actions that leads to the threat of abandonment; it truly is an existential danger to survival.

Understood in that context, you can see why shame is actually a helpful emotion within a child’s (or adult’s) threat-detection system. Shame “freezes” a child in place as a protection mechanism, and that “freeze” might look like an inability to apologize, a reluctance to accept help, or an unwillingness to tell the truth. The problem, though, is that a numb, glazed-over child tends to infuriate a parent, because we think our child is ignoring us, or we misinterpret their behavior as rudeness or apathy. As a result, rather than recognize or address the shame, we yell or get into a power struggle with our kid or send him away to his room—all approaches that escalate the shame and continue the cycle. But once we see shame pop up and label it for what it is, we have the ability to intervene differently.

Shame detection is a critical skill to have in any parent’s toolbox. The ability to identify shame in all its forms is something of a parental superpower, because once we can see it, we can modify our behavior accordingly—not to be permissive but instead to be effective. So many of our kids’ most difficult moments include shame as a common factor, and shame makes any situation more combustible. The next time you’re in a power struggle with your child, or you’re thinking, “I know parenting is hard, but does it have to be this explosive?” pay attention: shame is often what adds fuel to the fire. Our goal as parents should be to notice when shame arises in our child, understand what situations bring it up, and see how it presents behaviorally. After that, we want to develop shame reduction, which enables us to help our children feel safe and secure again. Detect first, reduce second.

She cannot apologize because to do so she’d have to “see” herself as the person who just did something awful, and she’d have to face the unwanted feeling of being unlovable to others. (“No one would want to love or take care of a kid who is so awful.”) She cannot confront the fear of abandonment that would inevitably come up if she did apologize, so instead she freezes to avoid further distress. Yes, this is all happening in a simple refusal to say “sorry.”

Of course, some of the shame our kids experience can be brought on by external factors—not because a child did anything “wrong,” but because we live in a world, unfortunately, where kids are judged on attributes or circumstances that are out of their control. Body shame, for example, or shame brought on by economic differences from their classmates—it can be hard to be a kid today. But the good news is that the more you work to reduce shame and increase connection where you can, the more your child will be equipped to handle those shaming moments that are outside your sphere of influence. Because no matter the source of a child’s shame, the best way to lessen it is always the same: knowing they are good inside, knowing they are lovable, and knowing they have worth.

Well, that part learned that it must not surface. It was essentially told: “You’re bad! You’re dangerous! Safety means connection with others and you threaten this closeness! Keep yourself far away, for my sake!” This. Is. Shame. Of course, the idea that this part of you threatens attachment and leads to aloneness isn’t actually true in the greater world—you can have emotions and still make strong connections. But it was true in your family in the time you were wiring your body for survival. These old habits die hard.

Fast-forward a few decades. You’re married now and you’re stressed at your job; your boss is constantly berating you, you’re worried about being fired, you’re always on edge. There’s a part of you that . . . well, wants to cry, wants to open up to your partner, wants to share your awful experiences so you can get support. And yet, this lesson from childhood lurks beneath the surface, subconsciously dictating your actions: “Support? You think you’ll get support for having your vulnerability and anxiety surface? These are the things that threaten relationships, not strengthen them! Push these feelings away away away—for your own protection!” And so you don’t go to your partner. You don’t go to a friend. Instead, the feelings build up until they emerge as increased reactivity, frustration, and anger. Or maybe they lead you to withdraw and shut down. Perhaps you turn to alcohol to turn these feelings off and push them away. You may even have a partner who says, “I can tell something doesn’t feel good . . . talk to me, let me in!” But still your body sends the message: “Ha! I won’t fall for that! I know better! ‘Let me in’? These experiences will shut me out!”

How does your child trigger this shutdown response in you? What parts of you, still to this day, need recognition, compassion, and permission to exist?

This stuck with me: connection first. Connection is the opposite of shame. It is the antidote to shame. Shame is a warning sign of aloneness, danger, and badness; connection is a sign of presence, safety, and goodness. Now, to be clear, connection does not mean approval. Approval is usually about a specific behavior; connection is about our relationship with the person underneath the behavior. And that’s another reason why connection with our children in their difficult moments does not “reinforce” bad behavior: shame has never been a motivator of positive behavior change at any time, in any place, for any type of person. Shame is sticky; it stagnates us. Connection is opening; it allows for movement. Connection is when we show our kids, “It’s okay to be you right now. Even when you’re struggling, it’s okay to be you. I am here with you, as you are.”

Our ability to talk with our kids about important, vulnerable, hard truths is dependent on our ability to tolerate the emotions that come up for us during these moments. Which is only one more reason why working on ourselves, as parents, is more critical than any single parenting intervention; the more we get to know our own circuitry, learn to tolerate and explore our own distress, and build coping skills for hard feelings, the more present we can be for our children. Our parenting is dependent on our willingness to confront our own truths, and from there, we can better connect with our kids.

Parents often fear that telling their kids the truth will be too scary or overwhelming, but we tend to have it all wrong when it comes to what scares children. It’s not information so much as feeling confused and alone in the absence of information that terrifies them. Children are wired to notice changes in their environment

on? Well, there’s a fancy term for this: “unformulated experience.”* It’s basically the feeling that something’s not right, without a clear explanation of what’s happening. Unformulated experience is terrifying to a child, because that “something’s not right” feeling free-floats around the body without an anchor of safety.

What’s an alternative to leaving a child feeling alone? Clear, direct, honest information shared while connected to you, your child’s loving, trusted adult. This is what helps kids feel safe and build resilience. Now, please note: I am not a proponent of unnecessarily scaring children. Quite the opposite. I’m a proponent of empowering children, and empowerment often comes from learning how to cope with stress. This requires having a parent who is willing to approach rather than avoid the truth. The path to regulation starts with understanding. In other words, watching a parent confront hard truths will help a child learn to regulate his feelings.

I absolutely would. I know that children are wired to notice and perceive, so I would assume that even if my child appeared calm, feelings of fear would be living inside his body and I wouldn’t want him to be alone with them.

Here’s how I see it: when kids start asking these questions, they are ready for answers. Or at least the start of the answer, with real words and real truths, at which point you can pause and see if more explanation is needed. Despite how it may seem, asking a question doesn’t entirely indicate ignorance—it also indicates awareness and readiness to learn.

Sometimes, parents simply can’t answer their kids’ questions truthfully—not because they don’t want to, but because they don’t have the answers. Talking honestly with our children about what we don’t know is an important iteration of the “tell the truth” principle.

Pause here. There are no perfect words to explain imperfect situations.

It’s your loving presence and attention to your child’s experience that his body will remember the most.

And if your child asks a question that you know has a tough answer, maybe start your response by saying, “That’s such an important question. I am going to tell you the answer. It might feel hard to hear, but as we talk, I’m right here with you.” In those moments, you might want to collect yourself before answering. “That’s a great question and I want to give you a great answer. I need some time to get back to you—but I absolutely will because answering your questions is so important.” The key here is to go back to your child with a response when you’re ready, even if your child doesn’t bring it up again. If you don’t, your child will be left with more fear, because he’ll be alone with the feelings and knowledge that inspired him to ask the question in the first place.

Because none of us is immune to emotion. Showing our children that we feel the tough stuff, that we struggle with it and still get through, is truly the best lesson you can give them.

In today’s world of intensive parenting, there’s a common misconception that having kids means sacrificing your own identity—that once you’re charged with taking care of young children, you are no longer entitled to take care of yourself. In reality, however, selfless parenting doesn’t help anyone—it doesn’t help the parents, who become depleted and resentful when they give so much of themselves without filling their own cups, and it doesn’t help kids, who absolutely notice their parents’ depletion and resentment and might feel guilty, anxious, or insecure in response.

So, if you have trouble prioritizing self-care, start with self-compassion. Remind yourself of this truth: “Over the course of my earlier years, it must have been adaptive to be vigilant about the needs of others, and this vigilance overpowered my attunement to my own needs.” We

My discomfort is evidence of change . . . not evidence that I’m doing something wrong.”

Remember, we cannot pour energy into our kids if we have no energy to give. We cannot exude patience if we don’t show ourselves patience.

regularly remind myself that in order to get what I need, someone else might have to be inconvenienced or annoyed, and this is okay. Someone else’s distress shouldn’t be a reason why I can’t meet my own needs. Understanding and accepting this allows me to, say, go for a walk on my own without guilt.

Our kids want our full attention more than anything else. Our attention communicates that they are safe, important, valuable, loved.