Good Inside Quotes

“Another way to infuse your presence is to tell your child you’ll write them a note or create a drawing with their name on it after they fall asleep and put it next to their bed; this way, kids who wake up in the middle of the night will see proof of your presence and your child’s body will feel safer knowing there’s a time you’ll “be there” next to them.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“Duckie, I know sleeping isn’t your favorite part of the day. It’s okay to feel sad at bedtime. Remember, Mommy Duck is right outside your room. You are safe. And Mommy Duck will see you in the morning. Okay, let’s get ready for bed.” Then go over the nighttime routine—use the same one as your child (“Let’s read Duckie her two books and then brush her teeth and then sing one song and say good night!”), and feel free to include the moments that tend to be hard for your child. If your daughter always asks for an extra book, put that into play, acting out that struggle, empathizing with the wish, and holding a boundary. (“Aw, Duckie, you want another book! I know. You can give me that extra book and I’ll take it with me outside and have it ready for us to read in the morning.” Or “Aw, Duckie, you want another, I know. It’s hard to have only two. I won’t”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“Kids who struggle to separate have trouble internalizing the soothing aspects of a parent-child relationship—they feel safe in a parent’s presence but, often, terrified in a parent’s absence.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“When parents become cold, punitive, and reactive, kids who are searching for understanding and help with self-soothing feel more alone and threatened.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“First, we have to help our kids feel safe. We have to help them develop coping skills during the day, when the stakes are lower, before a child will feel safe enough to separate at night.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“She looks sad. I wonder if she will cry. Sometimes I cry when I’m sad. Sometimes I don’t. Either way is okay.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“What’s more important, doing something that feels right to you or making other people happy? What if you can’t do both? When does making someone else happy, instead of doing something that feels right, feel okay to you? When would it be extra-important to choose doing what feels right, even if someone else is super unhappy? What if you do something that you want and someone else gets mad at you . . . does this mean you’re a bad person? Why or why not?”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“There’s something about this red shirt that doesn’t feel good to you”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“Only you know your body, so you’re the only one who can know if you’re full. Here’s the thing: once dinner is over, the kitchen is closed. Maybe do one check-in, see what your body is saying, and double-check you’re good for the night.”
― 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. After all, successfully managing life’s many challenges is a person’s most reliable path to happiness.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“Behavioral issues are often a call for attention or connection—if those needs are met, that cry for help is no longer necessary. This is why a bad behavior is rarely “fixed” in that behavior’s immediate aftermath. It takes ongoing connection to really move the needle, and kids in difficult behavioral cycles need more proactive attention, more one-on-one time, more assurance that they are seen and valued and have an identity outside of their acting out.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

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

“Validation sounds like this: “You’re upset, that’s real, I see that.” Invalidation, or the act of dismissing someone else’s experience or truth, would sound like this: “There’s no reason to be so upset, you’re so sensitive, come on!”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“The second teaches my son that his feelings are too powerful and scary to be managed, that they harm others and threaten attachment security with a caregiver. (We’ll get into more detail about attachment in chapter 4, but the short of it is this: focusing on a child’s impact on us sets the stage for codependence, not regulation or empathy.)”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“Behaviorism privileges shaping behavior above understanding behavior.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

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

“When our intention is simply to stop the yelling or crying, kids feel it and learn only one lesson: “The feelings that overwhelm me also overwhelm my parent. My parent is trying to end this, which means my emotions truly are as bad as they feel.” Our kids cannot learn to regulate a feeling that we, the adults, try to avoid or shut down. Our goal during a tantrum should be to keep ourselves calm and keep our children safe. After”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“we want our kids to be able to recognize their wants and needs as adults, then we need to start seeing tantrums as an essential part of their development.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“I need to change, and once I do I will feel worthy and lovable!” But the directionality is precisely the opposite. Our goodness is what grounds us and allows us to experience difficult emotions without having them take over or become our identity.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“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? Then, rather than shaming our kids for their shortcomings, making them feel unseen and alone, we could help them access their internal goodness, improving their behavior along the way. Shifting our perspective isn’t easy, but it’s absolutely worth it.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“them feel safe, what allows them to find calm, and what leads to the development of emotion regulation and resilience. Providing a safe space to try and fail without worrying they’ll be seen as “bad” is what will allow your children to learn and grow, and to ultimately feel more connected to you.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“Why are they unable? Well, to put it simply: children are more able to experience strong feelings than they are to regulate those feelings, and the gap between experiencing strong feelings and regulating those feelings comes out as dysregulated behavior (think hitting, kicking, screaming). In their book The Whole-Brain Child, neuropsychiatrist Daniel Siegel and psychotherapist Tina Payne Bryson describe why children so often become dysregulated. They use the analogy of a two-story house: The downstairs brain is responsible for our most basic functions, like breathing, as well as our impulses and emotions. The upstairs brain is responsible for”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

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

“You might even think of parents as a container—they establish the outer edges, but within the container, children are free to explore and express themselves.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“What is this really about, what is my child telling me he’s struggling with or needs?”), we have the foundation for other interventions.”
― 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.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“Why do siblings argue so much? Well, let’s start with a brilliant analogy from Elaine Mazlish and Adele Faber, authors of one of my favorite parenting books, Siblings Without Rivalry. They remind us that when a child gets a sibling, it feels to them similar to how it would feel for you if your partner got a second spouse. Imagine your partner comes home and says, “Amazing news! We’re getting a second wife! You’re going to be a big wife and now we’ll have a little wife and we’re going to be one big happy family!” If you’re like me, you’d look around the room thinking, “WHAT? Am I in an alternative universe? Why is this good for me?” All of your relatives and neighbors ask you if you’re so excited about this new wife, then nine months later everyone showers her with gifts and hugs, and forever after, you’re expected to love this woman and get along swimmingly. Imagine one day you take one of her items—something that used to be yours—out of her hand and everyone yells at YOU about it, saying, “You can’t do things like this! You can’t take a toy from a little wife! Look how small and helpless and innocent she is!” By this point, I think we’d be beyond confused . . . we’d be filled with the rage that comes from feeling unseen. This. Is. Siblinghood.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“Validation is the process of seeing someone else’s emotional experience as real and true, rather than seeing someone else’s emotional experience as something we want to convince them out of or logic them away from.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“If safety is our primary destination, boundaries are the pathway we use to get there. Boundaries, when created with intention, serve to protect and contain. We set boundaries out of love for our children, because we want to protect them when they’re unable to make good decisions for themselves.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

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