Good Inside Quotes

“It’s a powerful feeling that tells us we should not want to be seen as we are in the moment. Shame encourages us to avoid contact with others—to hide, to distance ourselves, to move away rather than toward others.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“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?”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“Parents often ask me: “How can you be against a parenting approach that has data showing it changes kids’ behavior? How can that be bad?” Well, it’s not necessarily bad. But here’s my issue with it: the evidence around behavior change can make us lose sight of what actually matters in favor of what is immediately observable.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“So many professionals advised us to use the system of time-outs and punishments and rewards, and it all seemed so logical. And they quoted impressive data, like a ninety percent reduction in difficult behavior. Who wouldn’t want that? But I didn’t see the bigger picture. We don’t want to ‘craft our child’s behavior’ . . . we want to help our son develop into a good person. We want to understand him, to help him with the things that feel bad to him. It never occurred to me that our earlier approach was actually making our problems worse. This is so important for parents to know.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“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.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“And for non-people-pleasing kids? Well, these methods often intensify challenging behavior, not help it. Because when we are not heard or seen on the inside, we escalate our expressions on the outside, in hopes of being taken seriously and getting our needs met. In short: when we see behavior as “the main event” instead of as a window into an unmet need, we may “successfully” shut down the behavior, but the underlying need remains, and it will pop up again, Whack-a-Mole style. When we don’t attend to the source of the leak, the water flow remains unchanged.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“However, while reinforcing our kid’s people-pleasing tendencies can be “convenient” in childhood, it can lead to major problems—a reluctance to say no, an inability to assert or even locate one’s own needs, a prioritization of other people’s wellness to the detriment of one’s own—later on.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“When we use methods of behavior modification, we can—temporarily—change behavior. I won’t deny that. I also won’t deny that it can take time to do the deeper work, which is a privilege we don’t always have. There are some situations where we need to correct a child’s behavior and do it quickly, and others where we simply can’t dedicate our limited resources to doing the additional work—where we’re already stretched too thin between work and family and the many demands of being a parent and a person in the world. But without attending to what’s under the surface, we cannot change the dynamics that motivate a child’s behavior. It’s like putting duct tape on a leak in the ceiling instead of wondering about the source of the leak. When we address the behavior first, we miss the opportunity to help our children build skills, and beyond this, we miss the opportunity to see our kids as people rather than a collection of behaviors.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“The only way I’d be able to change and show up more grounded and less reactive in the future would be to embrace curiosity about what was happening for me underneath the behavior.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“Behavior, in all its forms, is a window: into the feelings, thoughts, urges, sensations, perceptions, and unmet needs of a person. Behavior is never “the story,” but rather it’s a clue to the bigger story begging to be addressed.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“You are the architect of your child’s resilience, and that is the ultimate gift you can give them.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“When we tell our kids, “I just want you to be happy,” we are telling them they need to get out of distress and into comfort.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“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.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“And yet, I’m not sure that “the best” for them is to “just be happy.” For me, happiness is much less compelling than resilience. After all, cultivating happiness is dependent on regulating distress. We have to feel safe before we can feel happy.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“What are we talking about when we say, “Cheer up!” or “You have so much to be happy about!” or “Why can’t you just be happy?” I, for one, don’t think we’re talking about cultivating happiness as much as we’re talking about avoiding fear and distress.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“And this is one I’ll remember forever, from a grandparent: “A few months ago, my daughter asked me to follow you so I could understand how she is parenting her kids. Wow, has this been an education for me. I called my daughter this morning and told her that I wish I could rewind and parent her in this way and that I see now that it must have felt so bad to her when I yelled or saw the worst in her, not the best. She cried. I guess she really needed to hear this. We talked about it for a while. It was one of the most important moments of our relationship.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“Remind yourself, right now: “Good parents don’t get it right all the time. Good parents repair.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“Mommy was having big feelings that came out in a yelling voice. Those were my feelings and it’s my job to work on managing them better. It’s never your fault when I yell and it’s not your job to figure out how I can stay calmer. I love you”)”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“It’s more comforting for a child to internalize badness (“I am bad inside”), because at least then he can hold on to the idea that the world around him is safe and good.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“But there’s another, more optimistic and encouraging interpretation: “Wow, this is amazing. If I can work on some of my own emotion regulation abilities—which will feel good for me anyway!—my child will change in response. How empowering!”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“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.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“One recent study confirmed this effect in the context of parenting: it examined the impact of parenting programs aimed at two-year-olds through eleven-year-olds, and found that as long as the interventions were adapted to the age of the particular child, parenting programs had equal effectiveness.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“There’s one question I hear from parents more than any other: “Is it too late?” My answer is always no. Because it’s always true.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to 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.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“This is why it’s so important to distinguish behavior from underlying feelings and experience.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to 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.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“A child who sees a parent as his secure base feels a sense of safety in the world, a sense of “someone will be there for me and comfort me if things go wrong.” As such, he feels capable of exploring, trying new things, taking risks, suffering failures, and being vulnerable.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“Here’s the big takeaway: kids wire themselves to adapt to their early environment, forming expectations about the world based on the data they take in; that early wiring impacts how they think about themselves and others long after childhood.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“Then I review: I said to my son in the time before separation, “Sweetie, I know it’s so hard for you when Mommy has to do work. That makes sense; you love being by Mommy’s side! You will be with Daddy, and I will see you for lunch. Mommy always comes back.” I set boundaries that felt right to me, and I expressed validation with my words and empathy with my tone. My son protested. And screamed. And cried. He did his job: he experienced and expressed feelings. In response, I said, “I know it’s so hard, sweetie. You’re allowed to be upset. I love you,” and then left. Validation, empathy, boundary. He cried. Again, experiencing and expressing feelings.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“When those emotions transform into dangerous behavior, we set appropriate boundaries, while still validating and empathizing.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be