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

by Becky Kennedy

I often think that healthy relationships are defined not by a lack of rupture but by how well we repair.

The more connected we feel to someone, the more we want to comply with their requests.

“Listening is really cooperation, and cooperation comes from connection.”

But we cannot encourage subservience and compliance in our kids when they’re young and expect confidence and assertiveness when they’re older.

The more we work for fairness, the more we create opportunities for competition

And . . . here’s the other important thing: I absolutely will not allow you to speak with harsh words or insults or teasing toward your sister. My number one job is to keep everyone in this family safe, and safety includes the words we use with each other.”

Here, you’re helping your children learn the process that leads to problem-solving; when we fix things for our kids, we just lock them into needing us to problem-solve, and this becomes frustrating to everyone.

The same principle holds true for our kids; meeting their rudeness with empathy and kindness will make them feel seen and help inspire kindness in return.

Here’s how I see it: children whine when they feel helpless. I often use the formula whining = strong desire + powerlessness

Trying to rationalize a fear or convince a child they shouldn’t be afraid, in the moment, is never a successful strategy. When a child feels fear, his body is experiencing a stress response. In this “I’m in danger” state, the logical-thinking part of the brain turns off so that the brain can focus its energy on survival. This means that when your child is in fear mode, reasoning with them will not deliver a sense of safety. What will help your child feel safe is sensing your presence; it’s the aloneness in the fear, after all, that’s the scariest part. In other words, kids need less logic, more connection.

You cannot just “get rid” of anxiety. Anxiety can only be effectively managed by increasing our tolerance for it, allowing it to exist, and understanding its purpose. This makes space for other emotions to emerge, thereby preventing the anxiety from taking over. When we don’t try to fight off a feeling within us but rather acknowledge it while still functioning in our everyday lives, we create the opportunity for more peace within ourselves.

Try preparing your child for a feeling without adding a solution or coping strategy; just pause, as if that really is enough. See what your child does next.

Here’s a deep paradox about learning: the more we embrace not-knowing and mistakes and struggles, the more we set the stage for growth, success, and achievement. This

And, of course, these skills translate outside of academics as well, because tolerating frustration is key to managing disappointments, communicating effectively with people with different opinions, and sticking with personal goals.

If we want our kids to develop frustration tolerance, we have to develop tolerance for their frustration.

What makes tolerating frustration so hard is that it requires us to let go of our need to finish and be quick and be right and have things done; frustration tolerance requires us to ground ourselves in what is happening in the moment, to feel okay even when we don’t know how to do something, and to focus on effort instead of outcome.

One of the best things about a growth mindset is that it builds a tolerance for learning.

Learning exposes our weaknesses and makes us feel vulnerable. It requires us to be brave. To help our kids become good learners (which I’d argue is more important than being “smart” or “getting things right”), we have to help them sit in the not-knowing-and-yet-still-working-at-it space.

It can be really helpful, as a family, to establish a set of growth mindset family values that you can refer to in moments of struggle or challenge (both your kids’ moments and your own). Here are four of these values I love, which I often write down in work areas or the kitchen, for my entire family to see: In our family, we love to be challenged. In our family, how hard we work is more important than coming up with the right answer. In our family, we know that not-knowing sits next to learning something new. We love learning new things, so we embrace “I don’t know” moments. In our family, we try to remember that sticking with something hard makes our brains grow. And we’re big into brain growth.

“I am in charge of my body. I am in charge of my body boundaries. I am in charge of who touches me, for how long, and at what times. I can like something one day and not want it another day. I can be comfortable touching some people and not others. I am the only person who can make these decisions.” And one more: “There will be times when I assert myself based on what feels right to me and other people won’t like it. They will push back. They will talk about what they want from me instead of honoring what I’m telling them feels comfortable to me. It’s not my job to make other people happy. Their discomfort is a feeling in their body, and it’s not my fault or my responsibility to make this feeling go away.”

We put distance between ourselves and our child, and we see our child as manipulative or as “the enemy.” I shudder to think about this impact, because as parents we want to do the opposite—we want to approach our child with a compassionate, open-minded curiosity that is grounded in the idea that kids (and adults!) are always doing the best they can with the resources they have available.

Hear me out. For me, confidence is not about feeling “good,” it’s about believing, “I really know what I feel right now. Yes, this feeling is real, and yes, it’s allowed to be there, and yes, I am a good person while I am feeling this way.” Confidence is our ability to feel at home with ourselves in the widest range of feelings possible, and it’s built from the belief that it’s okay to be who you are no matter what you’re feeling.

Kids who are perfectionistic are also prone to rigidity; they have extremes to their moods and to their reactions, so they often feel like they’re on top of the world or at the bottom of the barrel. Their self-concept is exceptionally fragile, which means there’s a relatively narrow range in which they can feel safe and happy with themselves; anything outside of that range is seemingly bad—this is why these kids shut down after things don’t go the way they want. The shutdown (“I won’t do it!” or “I’m done!” or “I’m the worst!”) isn’t a sign that they’re stubborn or spoiled but that they can’t access good feelings about themselves in that moment. The goal, as parents, is to widen the range, to help perfectionists live in the “gray” so that the highs and lows of their self-worth aren’t so extreme.

help kids with perfectionistic tendencies, then, we want to show them how to separate what they are doing from who they are. This is what gives kids the freedom to feel good in the gray—to feel capable inside after their first attempt at tying shoes doesn’t work or when they’re struggling to read.

Perfectionism steals a child’s (and adult’s) ability to feel good in the process of learning because it dictates that goodness only comes from successful outcomes. We

After all, there are components of perfectionism—drive and strong-mindedness and conviction—that can feel really good, and we want to help our kids harness these traits without collapsing under the immense pressure perfectionism can add.

“Do you know that I have a Perfect Girl in me? Yes! She often tells me things have to be perfect or else they’re not worth doing! I think you have one too! I think she popped up when you were doing your math homework. Anyway, there’s no problem with having a Perfect Voice. A lot of people have them! But sometimes Perfect Girl, for me, she just gets so loud and she makes it hard for me to focus.

‘Oh, hi, Perfect Girl. You again! I know, you always say, “Perfect, perfect, must be perfect, if it’s not perfect I have to stop.” I hear you! And also, I’m going to ask you to step back. I am going to take a deep breath and find my “I can do hard things” voice because I know that’s in there too.’ Then I can hear a quieter voice telling me it’s okay that things are hard and I can do hard things.”

Also, the power of the Perfect Voice strategy is that you’re teaching your child how to relate to her perfectionism rather than reject it; after all, rejecting a part of us feels like self-loathing. When we talk about the Perfect Voice, a child doesn’t see perfectionism as the enemy; instead, she feels empowered to manage the perfectionism when it arises.

One day my daughter taught me a word she learned in Spanish and I responded, “One–nothing!” She looked at me, confused, and I explained, “Not knowing something means I can learn, and learning new things is awesome. I learned one thing just now so I get one point!” In this game, “winning” isn’t equated with being “perfect” or already knowing something, but instead with the process of learning. There’s something about making not-knowing into a “win” that gives kids permission to struggle and learn. This is huge for perfectionists.

There are many ways to do a 180 on perfectionism: make a game of not-knowing, make it a goal to make a mistake, give high fives for errors.

Aislyn sees seven words spelled incorrectly and three spelled correctly. “Freya,” she says. “I don’t know what to do with you. That’s WAY too many words that are spelled just right. Seriously, your job is to learn! And with those words, you didn’t learn anything!” Freya and Aislyn laugh, and inside, Aislyn knows that this was a huge moment.

Separation is tough. There’s nothing wrong with a child who cries at drop-off or clings when Mom heads off to work or delays leaving the house in anticipation of going to school. Remember, these behaviors are rooted in attachment. Children associate parental presence with safety, because their bodies tell them: “As long as your parent is near, you have protection.” In moments of separation, children must try to find feelings of security in a new environment or with a new caregiver or teacher, and that’s a tall order. It requires them to hold on to the feelings of safety that come from a parent-child relationship without having that relationship right there in front of them.

light—when a child is near her parent, the ball of light shines on her, giving her a feeling of security that allows her to explore, play, and grow. As our kids get older, we hope that the light doesn’t just shine on them in their parents’ presence, but that it shines in them even when they are separated from their parents—that it has actually entered a child’s body and become her own. The concept of internalization helps us understand what kids need to separate successfully; kids literally have to “take in” something from a parent so they can hold on to the good feelings of the relationship even when a parent says goodbye.

So remember, you, the parent, set the tone—separating might be hard for everyone, but projecting confidence is key to a smooth transition.

While this response is certainly understandable, unfortunately, it can exacerbate the very issues that contributed to sleep problems in the first place. When parents become cold, punitive, and reactive, kids who are searching for understanding and help with self-soothing feel more alone and threatened. Thus our kids’ need for our presence heightens, we become more frustrated . . . and the cycle continues.

“I’m overwhelmed. I took that toy because I couldn’t manage wanting it and not having it, and now, on top of that, all my internal fears of being bad and unlovable are coming up. This fear puts my body into a threat state and now I must protect myself at all costs.” In

this moment, the DFK needs her parent to understand that yes, on the surface, she’s out of control and maybe even in attack mode, but underneath, she’s in a state of threat and fear and overwhelm.

Perhaps more than anything else, DFKs pick up on your perception of them in their difficult moments; DFKs feel so overwhelmed by themselves and terrified of their own badness that they are hypervigilant for any sign from a parent that confirms their deepest fears. The “good kid having a hard time” strategy is a complex one—there’s not really one thing to “do.”

If there’s only one strategy you remember for your interactions with a DFK, please let it be this: nothing is as powerful as your presence. Your loving, as-calm-as-possible presence, without any words or fancy scripts, is without a doubt your most important parenting “tool.”

DFKs tend to hate talking about feelings. It feels like too much, too intense, too intrusive. For DFKs, feelings sit too close to their vulnerability. As we know, their vulnerability sits so close to shame that it leads them to shut down.

Angie remembers, “Containment first.” She walks toward Maura and says, “I’m going to pick you up and bring you to your room. You’re not in trouble. I’ll sit with you there. You’re a good kid having a hard time and I love you.”

It’s a vicious cycle: we want to do things differently → we judge ourselves for how we’ve handled parenting issues up until that point → we experience a flood of distressing feelings and thoughts → we turn away from change to escape these negative internal experiences → we continue our old patterns.

Let’s do this together. Place your feet on the ground, place your hand on your heart, and say this aloud with me: “Yes, I’ve done lots of things I wish I hadn’t. I’ve behaved in ways I’m not proud of. Those are all things I did. That’s not who I am. This difference doesn’t let me off the hook; this difference leaves me on the hook, because it is the only way I can hold myself accountable to make changes. I am a good person who has done not-so-good things. I am still a good person. I am good inside, I have always been good inside, I will remain good inside.” Allow yourself to take in these words. So many of us have developed enough self-beliefs about not being good enough that telling ourselves that we are good inside, even when we struggle or act out, is, well . . . radical.

self-reflection is brave and difficult, and working on yourself while you’re raising young kids is incredibly grueling.