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

by Becky Kennedy

Yes, these systems made logical sense, but they focused on eradicating “bad” behaviors and enforcing compliance at the expense of the parent-child relationship. Time-outs, for example, were encouraged to change behavior . . . but what about the fact that they sent kids away at the exact moments they needed their parents the most?

Here’s the thing I realized: these “evidence-based” approaches were built on principles of behaviorism, a theory of learning that focuses on observable actions rather than non-observable mental states like feelings and thoughts and urges. 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.

Understanding that we’re all good inside is what allows you to distinguish a person (your child) from a behavior (rudeness, hitting, saying, “I hate you”). Differentiating who someone is from what they do is key to creating interventions that preserve your relationship while also leading to impactful change.

many parents see behavior as the measure of who our kids are, rather than using behavior as a clue to what our kids might need. What if we saw behavior as an expression of needs, not identity?

Finding the good inside can often come from asking ourselves one simple question: “What is my most generous interpretation of what just happened?”

focusing on a child’s impact on us sets the stage for codependence, not regulation or empathy.)

Here’s another reason I like thinking in terms of MGI: at all times, but especially when our kids are dysregulated—meaning their emotions overwhelm their current coping skills—they look to their parents to understand, “Who am I right now? Am I a bad kid doing bad things . . . or am I a good kid having a hard time?”

Let’s say you deliver the “You’re allowed to be mad” line, and your son screams, “Well I am mad! I hate you!” First: ground yourself and internally validate your perspective (“I know I am making a good decision here. I trust myself”). Then, continue to acknowledge your child’s perspective—his truth: “Ugh, I know you are. I know you’re really mad. I get it.” Now, hold your boundary. Feel free to add on when you feel an opening. “There are lots of other movies we can watch, let me know if you want to pick one of those,” or “I wonder if there are any other things we can do tonight that would feel fun?” But remember, you’ve already done what’s necessary, for both of you.

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.

Boundaries are not what we tell kids not to do; boundaries are what we tell kids we will do. Boundaries embody your authority as a parent and don’t require your child to do anything. In the case of Reina and Kai, a productive intervention might have looked like their mother stepping between them, moving the figures from Reina’s reach, and saying, “I won’t let you throw these toys.” Or maybe, if she didn’t want to upset the thoughtfully laid-out figures in the playroom, she would pick Reina up and go sit with her in another room. These are boundaries. Saying, “Stop throwing right now!”—though a natural reaction for most parents—is not.

Some other examples of boundaries: “I won’t let you hit your brother” as you walk between your daughter and her brother and position your body in a way so the hitting doesn’t happen again. “I won’t let you run with scissors” as you place your hands around your child’s hips so that movement isn’t possible. “Screen time is over now, I’m going to turn off the TV.” You turn off the TV and place the remote somewhere it cannot be reached by your child. Here are examples of not boundaries, but instead ways we essentially ask our kids to do our jobs for us. In these scenarios, despite our attempts to shut down a behavior, it usually escalates further—not because our kids “don’t listen,” but because their bodies feel a lack of containment. The absence of a sturdy adult keeping them safe is more dysregulating to them than the original issue. “Please stop hitting your brother!” “Stop running! I said to stop running! If you keep running with those scissors, you’re not going to get dessert!” “Didn’t we say you’d be done after this show? Can’t we be done? Why do you have to make this so hard?”

In each of these examples, parents are asking their kids to inhibit an urge or desire that, frankly, they are developmentally incapable of inhibiting. We cannot tell a child who is hitting someone to stop hitting, or a child who is running to stop running, or a child who is complaining about wanting more TV to stop complaining. Well, we can (I am someone who says all these things too!), but these pleas won’t be successful. Why? Because we cannot control someone else—we can only control ourselves. And when we ask our child to do our job for us, they are more likely to get further dysregulated, because we are essentially saying, “I see that you’re out of control. I don’t know what to do here, so I’m going to put you in charge and ask you to get ...

Isn’t this what we all want when we’re out of control? Someone who will stay calm and take charge and help us feel safe again?

The more children feel they can depend on a parent, the more independent they can be.

Children interpret our interactions with them not as a reaction to the specific moment but as a message about who they should be. So when your child says, “I hate my baby brother, send him back to the hospital!” and you yell, “Don’t say that about your brother, you love him!” the lesson they learn isn’t that their words were inappropriate. The lesson they learn is that jealousy and anger are dangerous emotions, ones they shouldn’t have at all.

Here’s what I always tell parents: 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 know this by now. If we continue to do the same thing over and over, then yes, we will reinforce whatever patterns have already developed. However, if we reflect and grow and try new things, if we grow ourselves and shift the way we approach our kids, then we are helping our kids develop new circuits at the same time as we are helping ourselves.

The wider the range of feelings we can regulate—if we can manage the frustration, disappointment, envy, and sadness—the more space we have to cultivate happiness. Regulating our emotions essentially develops a cushion around those feelings, softening them and preventing them from consuming the entire jar. Regulation first, happiness second.

Resilience, in many ways, is our ability to experience a wide range of emotions and still feel like ourselves. Resilience helps us bounce back from the stress, failure, mistakes, and adversity in our lives. Resilience allows for the emergence of happiness.

Resilience is not a static character trait that children possess or lack; it’s a skill that can be cultivated, and one that, hopefully, parents help instill in their kids from a young age. Because we can’t always change the stressors around us, but we can always work on our ability to access resilience.

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.

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. We live in a goal-oriented society, so in order to make our kids happy and encourage their “success,” we often minimize or eliminate their disappointments in favor of providing immediate wins. We take them out of struggle and place them into triumph, out of an uncomfortable feeling and into a more pleasant one. It’s an understandable impulse, but one that is shortsighted.

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When we tell ourselves that we just want our kids to be happy, we take on the job of happiness police, eager to help our kids avoid discomfort instead of teaching our kids how to cope with discomfort. This wires a child for a circuit that says, “Discomfort is bad, wrong, and a sign I need immediate ease. I need to look for that ‘better’ feeling because I never learned how to tolerate distress.” This is very different from the circuit built by nurturing resilience: “Discomfort happens, discomfort is where I learn. I am not scared of discomfort because I learned to tolerate it in my childhood—because my parent tolerated it in me.”

When we tell kids, “You’re going to be fine,” or “You’re so young, you don’t need to worry about this,” our kids learn that they shouldn’t be feeling the way they do. Many parents tell me they want to “protect” their kids from tough feelings; this well-intentioned intervention often backfires, because most efforts at “protection” actually leave a child alone with the feelings they’re already having, which is scarier than the feelings themselves. Parents don’t so much need to protect kids from having tough feelings as much as we need to prepare our kids to have those feelings.

This means instead of telling your child, “Grandma just . . . went away. She’s in a better place,” saying, “I want to tell you something that you may have big feelings about. Grandma died yesterday. That means her body stopped working,” and then pausing as you sit next to your child and waiting to see what happens next. Maybe later you add on, “It’s okay to be really sad,” or “What great questions you’re asking—I’m so glad we’re talking about it.” The larger lesson we are teaching our kids is that distress is a part of life and when upsetting things happen, we can talk about them and get through them with the people we love.

You are the architect of your child’s resilience, and that is the ultimate gift you can give them. After all, successfully managing life’s many challenges is a person’s most reliable path to happiness.

Partner reaction #2: Wow, Becky had a big reaction there. I didn’t like it. I wonder what was going on for her in that moment. It’s not okay to throw a cereal box—she probably knows that—so something powerful must have been happening for her. She’s a good person, so she must be really struggling. I’ve struggled before too, and in those moments, I wasn’t at my best. I’ll go to her and say, “Hey, that was a lot. And yet, you must have had something big happening for you, because I know you don’t like reacting that way. So let’s talk about it—I care more about what was going on for you than I do about the specific reaction. I’m here. Let’s figure it out together.” Partner’s feelings: Curious, empathic, a bit hesitant, connected.

Because the behavior is really just a symptom—once the core problem is addressed, the symptom will, eventually, go away.

When we approach our kids with charts and reinforcement and stickers and time-outs, we essentially tell them that their behavioral compliance is what matters most. We display an indifference to their distress and their personhood (an interest in which is critical to forming human relationships), and our kids can feel that. Now, sixteen years later, this couple’s son was essentially saying: “I don’t care about your sticker charts and your punishments. I’m bigger now, and you can’t throw me in a time-out. I’m no longer scared of you, and you have no leverage because there is nothing connecting us.” When our kids get older and bigger, methods of behavior control stop working. Children simply aren’t motivated anymore by our rewards, and they’re too physically big for us to enforce punishments and consequences. When we sacrifice relationship building in favor of control tactics, our children may age, but in many ways, they developmentally remain toddlers, because they miss out on years of building the emotion regulation, coping skills, intrinsic motivation, and inhibition of desires that are necessary for life success. When we are busy exerting extrinsic control over our children’s external behavior, we sacrifice teaching these critical internal skills.

And here’s another reason we want to focus on connection over behavior modification: if we don’t build a sturdy foundation with our kids—one based in trust, understanding, and curiosity—then we have nothing keeping them attached to us. I think about the term “connection capital” a lot. It refers to the reserve of positive feelings we hopefully build up with our children, which we can pull from in times of struggle or when the relationship between us gets strained. If we don’t build this up during our children’s earlier years, well, we have nothing to draw on when our kids are adolescents and young adults—years when the behavior modification methods we may have once relied on are no longer at our disposal because our kids are physically bigger, are more independent, and can rebel against our sticker charts, rewards, and punishments.

How do we look through the action to see the deeper behavior? It certainly sounds like a good idea, but it’s not so easy to execute when our son is talking back to us, or our daughter is throwing food, or both kids are jumping on the furniture. It begins, as I mentioned earlier, with being curious. Here are some questions to get you started, to ask yourself after any tough moment: What is my most generous interpretation (MGI) of my child’s behavior? What was going on for my child in that moment? What was my child feeling right before that behavior emerged? What urge did my child have a hard time regulating? What is a parallel situation in my life? And if I did something similar, what might I have been struggling with in that moment? What does my child feel I don’t understand about them? If I remember that my child is a good kid having a hard time . . . what are they having a hard time with? What deeper themes are being displayed underneath this behavior?

When I find myself in a “tell the truth” situation with my own kids, I often start with these words: “________ happened. You were right to notice that.” This is critical. Our children are deep sensors and perceivers of their environment.

This approach is equally important in situations a child might not visibly react to. Imagine you and your partner are arguing in the kitchen while your child is eating lunch. Things escalate to the point of loud voices, nasty words, and visibly angry facial expressions. Naming what’s true might sound like, “Papa and I just used very loud voices. You were right to notice that.”

Talking honestly with our children about what we don’t know is an important iteration of the “tell the truth” principle.

When I don’t have clear answers, I often use a “Here’s what I don’t know and here’s what I do know” formula. “What I do know,” in these cases, essentially just confirms my presence and my ability to be there for my child. That’s all we ever really know, anyway. This might sound like, “You’re worried about getting your blood drawn today. Exactly how long it will take and how much it will hurt, I don’t know. What I do know is that it will hurt, and then it will stop hurting at some point. I will be with you the whole time, and we’ll get through it together.” Let’s take something bigger. Maybe you tell your child that his grandmother has cancer. He asks, “But is she going to be okay? Is she going to get all better?” Telling the truth about “I don’t know” would sound like this: “What a great question. I hope she gets better, sweetie. And the truth is that . . . we don’t know. We don’t know if she will get better. What I do know is that I will tell you the truth, even if it feels uncomfortable, and that I am here for you with all the feelings you have about this.”

Here are some things I don’t want my children to say about me when they’re older: “My mom? She did everything for me,” or “My mom always put me first,” or “My mom never took care of herself, she was too busy caring for us.” I hope they never say any version of, “My mom ran herself into the ground while she parented me.” What do I want my kids to say instead? How about: “My mom? She knew when she needed time for herself and balanced that with meeting my needs,” or “My mom was an awesome model for self-care. She taught me the importance of taking care of myself, and how to do that while still being connected to someone else.” Or maybe even, “My mom showed me that parenthood doesn’t mean losing yourself. Parenthood means helping your child develop and grow while you yourself are developing and growing at the same time.” 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.

Here’s a list of small self-care activities to get you started: Drink one glass of water in the morning Meditate for two minutes Drink your coffee while it’s hot Cook yourself a legitimate breakfast Listen to calming music Read a few pages of a book Have a good cry Take five hot cocoa breaths while seated Rest in child’s pose Color Talk to a friend Brush your hair Journal

Having a healthy amount of connection capital leads kids to feel confident, capable, safe, and worthy. And these positive feelings on the inside lead to “good” behavior on the outside—behavior like cooperation, flexibility, and regulation. So in order to create positive change, we have to first build connection, which will lead kids to feel better, which will then lead them to behave better. But note, behavior comes last. We cannot start there. We must start with connection.

Our kids want our full attention more than anything else. Our attention communicates that they are safe, important, valuable, loved. And yet, our devices are powerful magnets for our attention, and our kids feel that distraction. To be clear, I’m not arguing against technology or using devices. I’m suggesting that we create boundaries around devices—not only for our kids but for ourselves.

And so I created the Fill-Up Game. Every time my son was difficult, instead of reacting, I’d take a deep breath and say, slowly and warmly, “I think you’re trying to tell me that you’re not filled up with Mommy.” My softening led to his softening, and he’d often reply by saying something like, “Yeah . . . I’m only up to here,” and point somewhere on his legs. Then I’d give him giant hugs and squeezes, over and over, until the “Mommy level” moved all the way up to the top of his head, at which point I would give him one more big squeeze so he had “a bit extra Mommy” to get him through the next little while. And did his behavior improve? No. Not right away. This “game” didn’t change things on a dime, but it was absolutely a turning point. It was the first step, because it made concrete exactly what my kid needed: more of his parent. The next time your child’s behavior is making you want to run in the opposite direction, try introducing the Fill-Up Game. Offer the idea that your child’s defiant behavior is the result of not being filled up with Mommy (or Daddy), and so it must be time to get a big dose. Add silliness and laughter.

The next time your child tells you about a difficult feeling, remind yourself: “Sit with him. Sit down on this bench without making any attempt to pull him off. This is how I am building connection with him and resilience inside of him.” Show your child you are right there with him, rather than asking him to feel another way. Words “That sounds really hard.” “That stinks. It really does.” “I’m so glad you’re talking to me about this.” “I believe you.” “Being a kid right now . . . ugh, it feels so so hard. I get that.” “You’re really sad about that. You’re allowed to be, sweetie.” “I’m right here with you. I’m so glad we’re together talking about this.” “Sometimes we don’t have a way to feel better right away. Sometimes when things feel tough, the best we can do is talk nicely to ourselves and talk to people who understand.”

Enter, “Did I ever tell you about the time . . . ?” This approach—which involves the parent’s relating to the child’s struggle from a personal perspective—builds connection, acknowledges a child’s good-inside-ness, and teaches problem-solving skills, all without talking about the problem directly, which can feel too intense for a kid in the moment. Script for “Did I Ever Tell You About the Time . . . ?” Identify the essence of your child’s struggle. (Is it hard for her to feel happy for other people’s accomplishments? Hard to stay engaged when math feels hard and frustrating?) Take on the problem as your own: remember a moment, in the recent past or when you were a child, when you struggled with something similar. Talk to your child not in the heat of the moment but when things are calm, starting with, “Did I ever tell you about the time . . . ?,” and share a story about yourself having a similar struggle. Engage your child in this story, ideally one where you didn’t come up with a quick fix but struggled and just kind of got through it. Do not end your story by directly relating it to your child. There’s no need to spell out, “Isn’t that just like when you . . . ?” Allow the story and moment to stand on their own, trusting that it will reach the part of your child that needed connection.

Why is this strategy so effective? Why does it give so much bang for your buck? First, when you share a story of struggling in the same way as your child, you’re essentially saying, “You’re good inside. You’re lovable. You’re worthy. You’re a good kid having a hard time. I see that goodness under your behavior, because I am good and I had the same struggle.” You can’t say that to your child directly in this moment, because it would feel too intense and they’d reject it, but by telling this story about yourself, all these themes come through.

I often think that healthy relationships are defined not by a lack of rupture but by how well we repair. All relationships have rough patches, and yet, these moments can be the greatest sources of deepening connection.

Overall, the key is to take ownership and tell your kids that they aren’t responsible for causing your feelings or fixing your reactions. When kids are alone with tough feelings, they turn to self-blame (“I’m a bad kid”) and self-doubt (“Maybe I overreacted? Maybe that wasn’t a yell? Maybe this is how I should just expect to be treated by others?”); when we repair, we ensure that kids don’t default to these explanations, which helps to preserve their confidence and sense of safety in the world. And remember: nothing feels as awful to kids as the painful feelings they are left alone with; repair replaces this aloneness with connection, and this should be the ultimate trade-up for all of us.

The single most important strategy in regard to listening is to connect to your child in their world before you ask them to do something in your world. A child has to feel seen before they’re able to switch out of something that feels good to them (drawing or playing with clay, for example) and fulfill a request that’s a priority for you (like cleaning up the art supplies).

Examples: “Wow, you’ve been working so hard on that tower. I know it’s going to be tricky to pause and take a bath. If we do a quick bath now, you will have time to build more before bed.” “I know it’s so hard to end playdates, because you’ve been having so much fun! We have to leave now, but Matias’s mom and I can set up your next playdate really soon.”

Give Your Child a Choice This strategy works really well when paired with “connect before you ask.” If you can give your child the agency to make a choice, they’ll be more likely to cooperate. No one likes feeling dictated to, especially children, who already feel controlled so much of the time. This is a strategy that you can use for kids of all ages; even your two-year-old will be more likely to cooperate for toothbrushing if you give the option of racing to the bathroom or zooming there like a rocket ship. Only offer your child options that you are okay with, and then let them know that you trust them to follow through on that choice. Examples: “We can leave Abby’s house now or you can play one more card game together. I’ll leave it up to you . . . After one more game? Okay. I know you’ll follow through with that choice, so that’s fine with me.” “You can clear your dishes now or come back to do it after your shower . . . After your shower? Okay, I trust that you’ll do that. Sounds good.”

Close Your Eyes Hack I’m not usually a fan of parenting “hacks” or “tricks” because they tend to prioritize short-term compliance over long-term connection and skill building. But that’s not the case with one of my all-time favorite strategies, the Close Your Eyes Hack. This trick gives our kids the core elements they need in order to want to listen to us—it infuses respect, trust, independence, control, and playfulness all at once. Here’s what it looks like: “I am going to close my eyes”—then place your hands over your eyes—“and all I’m saying is that if there is a child with his shoes on when I open my eyes . . . oh my goodness, if there is a child all Velcroed up . . . I just don’t know what I am going to do! I am going to be so confused! I may even—oh no oh no—have to do a silly jumpy dance and wiggle all around and I may even fall on the floor!” Then pause. Wait. The chances of your child’s running to put his shoes on just skyrocketed. Why? Because now your child is in charge. He feels in control rather than like he’s being controlled. Your child feels you trust him because you’re not watching (even though you may be peering through your fingers), and you’re adding in silliness and the promise of doing something absurd—what kid doesn’t love to watch a parent dance and fall down and look ridiculous?

I want you to memorize these words: “Two things are true: I’m in charge of this decision and my answer is no. You’re in charge of your feelings and you’re allowed to be upset.” The words themselves actually matter less than the idea and the tone. The idea is that we are allowed to make decisions and our kids are allowed to have their own feelings.

you're allowed to be upset but the answer is No.

Name the Wish One of my favorite tantrum strategies is to name the wish underneath a child’s meltdown—literally say out loud what your child is wishing for that they aren’t getting. There’s always an unmet wish to be found, whether it’s something tangible, like ice cream for breakfast, or something more internal, like wanting more independence or to feel heard. When we name the wish, we immediately see beneath the surface and identify what feels so hard—wanting and not having. Naming the wish connects you with your child, brings out your empathy, and makes your child feel seen, which helps them feel safe and good inside, and also helps them calm down.