Good Inside Quotes

“We don’t have to choose a single truth. In fact, in most areas of life, we have multiple realities that don’t exactly add up. They simply coexist, and the best we can do is acknowledge all of them.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“We also do better, as individuals, when we approach our own internal monologue with a “two things are true” perspective. Multiplicity is what allows a person to recognize that I can love my kids and crave alone time;”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“When you’re in “one thing is true” mode, you’re judgmental of and reactive to someone else’s experience, because it feels like an assault on your own truth. As a result, you will seek to prove your own point of view, which in turn makes the other person defensive, because they need to uphold the realness of their experience. In “one thing is true” mode, exchanges escalate quickly—each person thinks they’re arguing about the content of the conversation, when in fact they’re trying to defend that they are a real, worthy person with a real, truthful experience.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“When we approach someone with the goal of understanding, we accept that there isn’t one correct interpretation of a set of facts, but rather multiple experiences and viewpoints. Understanding has one goal: connection. And because connecting to our kids is how they learn to regulate their emotions and feel good inside, understanding will come up over and over again as a goal of communication.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

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

“This idea of multiplicity—the ability to accept multiple realities at once—is critical to healthy relationships. When there are two people in a room, there are also two sets of feelings, thoughts, needs, and perspectives. Our ability to hold on to multiple truths at once—ours and someone else’s—allows two people in a relationship to feel seen and feel real, even if they are in conflict. Multiplicity is what allows two people to get along and feel close—”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“It’s important to take ownership over your role (“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”) instead of insinuating that your child “made you” react in a certain way. And remember: as a parent, you are”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“All good decisions start with feeling secure in ourselves and in our environment, and nothing feels more secure than being recognized for the good people we truly are.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“No, but if I look for perfect, I’ll miss growth . . . and I’m a pretty big fan of growth.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

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

“Finding the MGI teaches parents to attend to what is going on inside of their child (big feelings, big worries, big urges, big sensations) rather than what is going on outside of their child (big words, or sometimes big actions).”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“when parents chronically shut down a behavior harshly without recognizing the good kid underneath, a child internalizes that they are bad.”
― 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?”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“It turns out, switching our parenting mindset from “consequences” to “connection” does not have to mean ceding family control to our children. While I resist time-outs, punishments, consequences, and ignoring, there’s nothing about my parenting style that’s permissive or fragile. My approach promotes firm boundaries, parental authority, and sturdy leadership, all while maintaining positive relationships, trust, and respect.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“ones that are rooted in an understanding of what these kids’ core fears are, what they are looking for in their toughest moments, and why their escalations happen so intensely.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“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

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

“I am doing my job of keeping my child safe. My child is doing their job of expressing feelings. We are both doing what we need to do. I can handle this.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“are at our best when we notice the multiple feelings, thoughts, urges, and sensations inside of us without any of them “becoming” us, when we can locate our self amid a sea of experiences (“I notice a part of me is feeling nervous and a part of me is feeling excited,” or “I notice a part of me wants to scream at my kids and a part of me knows to take a deep breath”). In other words, we are our healthiest selves when we can see that two (or more!) things are true.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“Our ability to experience many seemingly oppositional thoughts and feelings at once—to know that you can experience several truths simultaneously—is key to our mental health.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“remember, logic doesn’t build regulation, and regulating tough feelings is the core struggle for kids prone to perfectionism.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“Circuitry for self-confidence depends on a child’s ability to locate identity over observable behavior; this comes from growing up in a family that focuses more on what’s “inside” a child (enduring qualities, feelings, ideas) than what is “outside” (accomplishments, outcomes, labels).”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

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

“Frustration tolerance is the ability to sit in the space between not-knowing and knowing, or between starting and finishing, which means we really want to build our child’s skills for coping with hard feelings rather than building skills for finding success.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“This feels hard because it is hard, not because I’m doing something wrong.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“A growth mindset teaches us that hard work and improvement are in our control, while specific outcomes are not.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

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

“I am both working on myself and working to take care of my family. I’m trying to rewire the patterns that do not benefit me and I’m trying to wire my kids, from the start, for resilience and feeling at home in themselves. Wow. I am doing so much.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“we want our kids to develop frustration tolerance, we have to develop tolerance for their frustration.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“Why do boundaries, validation, and empathy help a child build regulation skills? Boundaries show our kids that even the biggest emotions won’t spiral out of control forever. Children need to sense a parent’s boundary—our “I won’t let you” and our stopping them from dangerous action—in order to feel, deep in their bodies, this message: “This feeling might seem as if it will take over and destroy the world, it might seem too much, and yet I am sensing in my parent’s boundary that there is a way to contain it. This feeling feels scary and overwhelming to me, but I can see it’s not scary or overwhelming to my parent.” Over time, children absorb this containment and can access it on their own. Validation and empathy, on the other hand, are how children find their goodness under their struggles. As we know, we have to feel good inside in order to change. It’s common to think, “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. And when parents get in the habit of validating a child’s experience and empathizing with it, they are essentially saying to that child, “You are real. You are lovable. You are good.”
― Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be